At the Academy Awards this past Sunday, The Cove, a documentary which details the annual killing of dolphins in a National Park at Taiji, Wakayama, Japan, took home the 2009 Oscar for Best Documentary. In a category that is often filled with heart-felt stories about important issues, this writer felt it important to highlight elements about the film that made it worthy of taking the trophy home.
The story: The Cove follows a team of activists, filmmakers and free-divers as they embark on a covert mission to penetrate a remote and hidden cove in Taiji, Japan, hoping to capture evidence of a dark and deadly secret. Director Louie Psihoyos journeys to Japan to meet with activist Ric O’Barry.
O’Barry is known best for his work in the 1960s as the world’s leading authority on dolphin training, working on the set of the popular television program Flipper. For years, he worked passionately as a trainer, keeping television audiences happy, until a tragic loss made him turn his back on the industry forever. From that point on, he would become an activist for dolphin preservation. In the film, O’Barry states, “I spent ten years building that industry up [i.e. capturing and training dolphins], and I spent the last thirty-five years trying to tear it down.”
Taiji, Japan is the largest supplier of dolphins in the world, providing dolphin to marine parks around the globe. However, the town has a dark, horrifying secret that it doesn’t want the rest of the world to know, and that it is willing to go to great lengths to protect. The area is guarded, and photography is forbidden. In hopes of exploring the gruesome acts that are taking place, Psihoyos and O’Barry assemble a brave group of activists, armed with state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, devise a covert plan to infiltrate the cove to document its happenings In their exploration, they uncover what may be the largest health crisis facing our planet.
The style: Beyond the powerful subject matter, The Cove is a well-made film. While there are many different definitions of what makes a good documentary, one thing is clear: the subject alone is not a movie. To engage an audience, a documentary film must be put together in a compelling way that will draw the audience into the story, investing them in the outcome.
Part environmental documentary, part spy thriller and part horror film, Psihoyos combines a variety of footage into an incredibly suspenseful story that could compete with any dramatic narrative film. There is a combination of archival footage, emotional interviews and suspenseful night-vision video as the group puts their mission into action. It is documentary filmmaking at its cinematic finest.
The verdict: The Cove is an unforgettable film that is as suspenseful as it is enlightening. When it premiere at Sundance in 2009, it was met with standing ovations, as the crowd both cheered and cried. Since then, it has inspired audiences worldwide to take action in the cause. It is hard not to be moved by this film, just as it is hard not to be inspired by these filmmakers and activists willing to risk everything for such an important cause.
What’s next: As reported by the LA Times, Animal Planet has just green-lit a television series, staring O’Barry, that will continue to focus on the controversial dolphin trade in Japan. The series is tentatively titled “Dolphin Warriors.” Animal Planet will also be premiering The Cove on its network this summer.
“What has happened now is that they’re not killing dolphins in the cove; they’ve moved offshore,” O’Barry said. “They’ve created an artificial cove out of nets, and they drive the dolphins in there and kill them so we can’t photograph it. But we have some drones and small planes and things to prove it.”
The film will be released at a limited number of Japanese movie theaters in June, and the filmmakers have also mentioned the possibility of raising funds for a Japanese version of the film, simply to spread awareness. ”They can’t deny this film anymore,” O’Barry said. “The last couple of months have meant validation, in a word. It’s been a breakthrough for me.”
While accepting the Academy Award, the filmmakers of The Cove had very limited time for their acceptance speeches. For an extended version of Louie Psihoyos’s remakes, please click here.
What did you think of The Cove winning the award?