Cove

The Cove is subtitled The Bay of Shame and it's put the Japanese fishing community of Taiji on the map of eco horror sites. In one small cove, every year in the fall, more than 20,000 dolphins are slaughtered. They are said to be the ones that no dolphinarium wants to buy and train.

A dolphin suitable for show business is worth around US$150,000; the meat of a dead dolphin sells for around US$600. The dolphin trade is a big business for a few villagers. They had managed to keep the dirty tricks of their trade secret until an American activist gained well-funded support for a documentary expose.

The resulting movie won the 2009 Best Documentary Oscar, and it's a first-class example of activist propaganda that knows how to get its message across effectively. Louis Psihoyos, a nature-photographer and leader of the Ocean Preservation Society, didn't present too many facts about dolphins, the fishing village or Japanese machinations in the Whaling Commission. Instead, he blended the elements of heist and horror movies, using infra-red and hidden cameras, dramatic music and ironic cuts (greatly aided by the innate smirk on the face of Japan's Whaling Commission delegate).

Divers, sound technicians and cameramen gather in Taiji in the manner of an Oceans 11 caper, recce the cove's isolated location, plan their secret filming and keep the local police and guards at bay. Then one day, they switch on their equipment and record the slaughter of the corralled dolphins. The horrific scenes of the blood-filled bay are presented without soundtrack or commentary. Mission accomplished, the team departs (presumably after retrieving their high-tech gear).

To further bolster its advocacy, the documentary also highlights the potential health danger of the mercury-tainted dolphin meat. Although it lets the trade's supporters utter a few defences, this is a movie with a one-sided outlook. It's primarily the viewpoint of Ric O'Barry, a co-creator of the Flipper TV series; he captured and trained its female dolphins. After a Saul of Tarsus epiphany, when his star mammal committed suicide -- as he saw it -- in his arms, he set out to free the world's captive dolphins (and their cousins, whales and porpoises).

His story is an inspiring one, but not yet acknowledged in Japan or the Whaling Commission. In June 2010, the film's delayed launch in Japanese cities had to be cancelled due to nationalist protestors. And Japanese officials were reportedly continuing to gain IWC votes by funding useless projects. The documentary suggests that whaling is one issue on which Japan fights for what it sees as its cultural rights and as a way to defy imperialistic Western moral pressures.

The Cove unintentionally also illustrates Japanese virtues. In the USA, local police and officials would not be so polite and willingly lied to. Local thugs would not just take photos and try to block intruders. O'Barry claims that two female activists had been killed elsewhere, and believes local fishermen would knife him if they could, but his paranoia is not proved.

By the end of the movie I felt that there must be some method to Taiji's gory madness. There must be credible folk-historical reasons, albeit ones unacceptable to outsiders, why such coastal communities regularly cull dolphins, whales or seals. Why don't Taiji's fishermen sense the intelligence and fellow feelings that the campaigners sense in dolphins? The Cove is entertaining special pleading for animal welfare, but it cannot ask all the questions.