The Cove is a film you’ve probably heard of, but don’t know a thing about.  You probably saw the trailer for the film which plays like it’s advertising a horror film.  That might not be too far off.  The film is horrific at points (not bad, hard to watch), but if I had to liken it to any genre it’d be a sort of heist film.  In actuality it is a documentary.  About dolphins.  Wait, don’t click away yet.  This isn’t any kind of boring nature film.  Let me tell you some more.

 

The Cove is primarily about Ric O’Barry.  Ric was the dolphin trainer, and in fact caught the 5 dolphins that played Flipper in the original Flipper tv series.  He was really a pioneer of dolphin training.  Through the filming of the show he lived 24/7 with these dolphins for 7 years and really got to know first hand what these species were like.  He very quickly noticed their intelligence and self awareness.  After the show went off the air the dolphins were moved to the Miami Seaquarium where, as Ric puts it, the main Flipper committed suicide in his arms.  He since dedicated his life to freeing dolphins from captivity.  It is through this course of work he learned about the Japanese town of Taiji.

 

Taiji is a small town in Japan that provides most dolphin attractions in the world with their dolphins.  Here fishermen round up dolphins using a wall of sound and then trainers from various parks around the world (including big ones like Sea World) come and select the ones they want.  These are then transported all over the world.  This in itself is pretty gross and makes you never want to watch a dolphin show again, but it gets so much worse.  When they do this there’s a lot of unsold dolphins.  So what about them?  Well they get herded into a back cove that you cannot see and is heavily protected.  It is here that 23,000 dolphins are slaughtered every year.

 

This is a secret that is mostly kept from the public by blocking cameras, arresting those who try to film, allowing no access to the area, and doing anything possible to prevent the media from getting to that cove.  The film dives into deeper territory as well, starting with telling about how previous organizations have tried in the past.  Such as the Sea Shepards.

 

First if you’ve never seen the series Whale Wars, go do it now.  You’ll get a quick education of Paul Watson, leader of that group and his fight against all sorts of environmental evil-doers, especially the whale hunting Japanese.  Recently the show was the subject of a South Park episode, so you might know it from there.  His group went in and managed to free some dolphins but were arrested and they couldn’t ever go back.

 

Another group was a surfing group who count among their members Heroes star Hayden Panettiere.  There was a lot of media involved when the group, including her visited Taiji to peacefully protest among the dolphins in the cove and were threatened and arrested.

Yes I could have used a picture of her actually protesting and not her and two friends in bikini’s but this whole thing is sort of a downer so bikini’s it is.

 

Anyway after all of these other groups fail, Louis Psihoyos (also the director of this movie) and his group the Ocean Preservation Society are asked to help.  Psihoyos puts together a diverse group to ultimately get footage of the dolphin killings going on in the cove.

 

The movie itself mostly follows their adventures as they try to do this, hiding cameras and microphones in middle of the night runs.  This is very exciting stuff, although it doesn’t sound that way.  It’s put together like a military operation and there’s real tension because there are real stakes.  They are being watched constantly by the police and fishermen.  Followed everywhere.  It’s a real life spy movie/action movie/heist movie.

 

Besides following their exploits and telling the tale of dolphin slaughter and Ric’s history, the movie also takes on the International Whaling Commission, Mercury poisoning, and the Japanese government’s fight to keep both whaling and the dolphin slaughters going.  These side trips are also very informative and eye opening.  Things like Japan paying small, poor nations to join the IWC and the fact that the dolphin meat isn’t even really edible.

 

Oh that’s right they’re killing all of these dolphins and their meat actually contains such a high level of mercury it’s unsafe to eat.  Also not all Japanese want it.  Most are actually unaware they are eating dolphin, as it is sneakily sold as being more expensive whale meat in places like Tokyo.

 

But we’re here to discuss the merits of the film itself, not it’s plot.  This is a wonderfully done movie, from the soundtrack, to the editing, to the actual footage, this is something everyone should see.  It deserves the academy award this year, but unfortunately I believe it is disqualified from competition.  It is a great film.  Definitely take time to rent or buy this one.  I do add the caveat that there’s some rough footage in this film, especially towards the very end when you see the end results of these missions.  If you have a weak stomach or don’t think you can handle that you may want to fast forward or turn the movie off at that point (although there’s disturbing imagery throughout, it’s nothing compared to the end stuff).  It’s pretty obvious when this stuff is about to start.

 

So go and buy (preferably through one of our affiliates, we need some money):
Preorder the dvd out December 8th:

 

Buy the soundtrack on iTunes:

 

Most importantly if you want to do something then HELP