Dolphin

            What can I say about The Cove?  Well, first of all, I’m not a big fan of the main (character doesn’t seem to fit)…guy.  He seems to be quite impressed with himself in general.  I just do not like his attitude.  That’s not really about the movie though; it’s more of a personal opinion of another person.  The Cove attempts to unveil the secretive dolphin hunting in Taiji Japan.  There were a lot of shocking scenes and testimonials in the movie that made the emotional impact very strong. 

            The movie has a very one-sided view of the topic.  The only times you see the Japanese point of view is when they are stuffing cameras into the faces of board members and things like that.  Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t really like the idea of killing dolphins but I don’t like watching a single-perspective documentary either.

            The movie makers do certain things to elicit outrage and make their side look better.  If you stormed into a meeting at a business and started showing pictures and sharing information, they would probably be angry and want you out.  This makes one side look like criminals and scoundrels, whether they are or not.  These kinds of tactics do not give an honest look into both sides’ perspectives.

            The “Trojan horse” comment is a brilliant explanation of this movie.  The movie is a documentary, so it serves a factual purpose, but it has enough action and suspense to keep viewers interested.  I’ll admit I had to look into some other reviews to come up with this idea, but it is intriguing nonetheless.

            In a culture that is very different from our own, many ideals do not apply.  In India, cows are a sacred animal and are not eaten, whereas in America the cow is a staple of many people’s diet.  Koreans and the Chinese eat dog meat.  And in some cases we feed cow meat to our dogs.  It’s a crazy little circle.  These kind of cultural differences apply between any two separate groups.  The point I am trying to make is that what is taboo for one culture may be perfectly acceptable in another.  Therefore we cannot judge based on cultural practices.  The Japanese people have lived off of the sea for a long time, and I doubt that one movie will change that.

            Now this same argument could be used in reverse to show that some cultural practices, like stoning or human sacrifices, are wrong no matter how you look at it.  And that is a fair argument as well.  But the main difference that I would like to point out is that the previous arguments are about food sources for the people.  This makes the two arguments incomparable to me.

            The Cove did well as both a movie and a documentary, and it was exciting to watch.  I still don’t like that main guy though.