Print
Email Story
Dolphins are intelligent, seem personable and are a big draw at water theme parks. Some places have tanks where you can plunk down wads of cash and swim with them for an hour or so. After a show or a swim you can hit the gift shop and pick up a cute dolphin stuffed animal.
Ric O'Barry says this is dolphin abuse. He blames himself for the craze after capturing and training the dolphins that played the title character on the popular 1960s TV show Flipper. His experience led him to the conclusion that dolphins ought not to be in captivity and he has dedicated his life to setting them free.
As part of his penance O'Barry got director Louis Psihoyos and some activists to travel to Taiji, Japan. Japanese fishermen herd the dolphins into a hidden cove. The young are captured for sale to water parks. The rest are speared and bludgeoned to death for food. Using undercover spy techniques that would impress the CIA, they show you the brutality of the slaughter.
O'Barry thinks because of their intelligence, dolphins ought to be protected from such treatment.
The Cove won audience favorite awards at festivals like the Seattle International Film Festival and Sundance. It is also controversial and like the equally disturbing (and hopefully soon-to-be-seen in the Tri-Cities) documentary Food, Inc. has critics who ask equally important questions.
After seeing the film some will rage about the injustice of what they've seen while grabbing a burger at a local restaurant. Cows providing that meat were slaughtered in much the same way. And should we be assigning human characteristics to animals? Is that fair to them? Or is it even germane to the issue?
Can we define what is happening to those dolphins as "right" or "wrong," "good" or "evil"? The film counters and says we need to educate ourselves about who we are, our purpose on the planet and how we are connected to and responsible for all life forms.
Your answers to these questions and dozens of others are why documentaries and the reality shows that are now so popular on TV are much more interesting than catching a recycling of one of the seven basic plots by a film industry that has nearly run out of original ideas.
If you see The Cove for no other reason -- see it for that. ◗ For an expanded review or to comment on these movies go to Mr. Movie's blog at tricityherald.com/arts/mrmovie.
