By Robert Johnson, watching at Manchester’s Cornerhouse
Blackfish, the newly-released documentary from Gabriella Cowperthwaite, tells the tale a handful of Orcas held captive in Orlando’s Seaworld.
It’s an intriguing documentary that’s worth much more than the sum of its parts.
The resulting film is mildly sensationalist with the manipulative feel associated with ‘point of view’ documentaries, and it’s also about half an hour too long. However, Blackfish could be one of those rare beasts that gathers momentum and works as the catalyst for change that it hopes to be.
A giant bull Orca called Tilikum, is an angry young man, and rightly so. Being captured whilst swimming off the coast of Iceland and transported to a pool 20 foot by 30 foot in some stinking harbour in Victoria would do that to anyone.
What happens next is almost an inevitability – at least for me. He bided his time and then killed a trainer.
The fact that this doesn’t happen more often is probably testament to the gentle nature of the killer whale and further reiterates the point of the documentary.
The rest of the film looks at the shameful, blame-passing cover-up by Seaworld, the appalling conditions the animals are kept in and the ensuing psychosis that develops when you put any wild animal into a space that deprives it of all stimulus. The film also follows Tilikum’s transfer to Orlando Seaworld where their giant piggy bank is not necessarily any better behaved.
Surely no one can still think places like Seaworld are a good idea and surely no one can think the animals are having a good time?
But perhaps blaming the visitors isn’t right either. We’re human beings and we’re not as smart as we think we are. We’ll go where we’re told and let’s be honest it was only about a hundred years ago we were laughing at dwarves and women with beards.
The real villains are, once again, the corporations and the message from Blackfish is clear: money is king.
It’s a depressing but all-too necessary subject matter and the story is told with vigour and complimentary sense of drama. Interesting and thought provoking.
Blackfish is now showing at Manchester’s Cornerhouse. Visit here for more details.
Image courtesy of Magnolia Pictures via YouTube, with thanks.
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