Blackfish (2013)

Must admit I started watching this thinking it would be one of those crap disaster-monster movies about a killer whale ravaging the inhabitants of some town off the east coast of America. I was wrong. What I saw instead was quite a one-sided though thoroughly absorbing 80 minute documentary about the horrors and moral pitfalls of the confinement of killer whales and the fatal results.

Orcinus Orca, to give killer whales their Latin moniker, are dangerous. Blackfish gives example after example of this. And yet they are not the targets of Gabriela Cowperthwaite's surprisingly fascinating documentary: it's the suits, specifically SeaWorld, with vested interests in the inhumane capture and psychologically debilitating captivity of a naturally wild mammalfish (not the technical term perhaps). All for lucrative financial gain of course.

SeaWorld, like all such companies, seem to be pretty disgusting and prone to misrepresenting inconvenient truths. There's no attempt to analyse the happenings from their point of view - and they refused to contribute any counter-argument to the picture, though they did offer a defensive statement retrospective of Blackfish's appearance at the Sundance festival earlier this year - but it remains difficult to sympathise with SeaWorld. They are in utter ambivalence to the mental health of the whales (there is a detailed segment featuring scientists and orca-experts explaining the significant emotional capabilities of the animals, rendering them intelligent enough to be psychologically damaged and altered by the torturous conditions they live in) or the trainers, who have largely been left in ignorance of the dangers they face when working with their charges. That the whale shows continue much as before - despite a court case - with only slight changes to trainer safety precautions is the most disturbing aspect of all; indeed, the infamous triple human-killer killer whale Tilikum is actually still giving performances, which is extraordinary.

Cowperthwaite interviews neglected employees as well as a remorseful old whale hunter, all of which are moving and emotional and tear inducing; she manipulates the audience in a superb way, encouraging even those who don't usually think much about abuses to animals (like me) to brandish an animal rights sign. It's a true documentary, expertly compiled and edited with music drenched in emotional significance to evoke in the audience the rage that clearly compelled Cowperthwaite to make Blackfish.

There's a quote towards the end: (paraphrasing) "in fifty years time we'll look back at these happenings and think them barbaric". There's a nice resonance in there that rings true somehow. One wonders how long this practice at SeaWorld will continue. With directors like Cowperthwaite shedding light on yet further examples of murky corporational workings, probably not very long - lobby and protest groups are massing and mobilising in opposition.