Advertisement

Movies & TV News & Features

Blackfish

BLACKFISH (Gabriela Cowperthwaite). See listing. Rating: NNNN


Blackfish opens like a boilerplate Hollywood thriller. Calls placed to 911 from SeaWorld in Orlando, playing over the film’s opening credits, set the scene of the crime: “A whale has eaten one of the trainers.”

On February 24, 2010, SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau was drowned by Tilikum, a 550-kilo bull orca. Blackfish offers a psychological profile of Tilikum and, in turn, of the humans who want to keep animals in captivity.

Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite never resorts to “save the whales” heartstring-pulling, even in a film where everyone interviewed – from shaken SeaWorld employees to an ex-whaler tasked with capturing (and killing) orcas – seems to hover on the verge of tears.

She moves carefully from cinematic tropes (those establishing 911 calls) to an investigation of the labour economy of whale-hunting and capture, the spectacle of training them for slack-jawed tourists and SeaWorld’s move into globalization by selling whales to poorly equipped parks across the globe. In all, Cowperthwaite presents whale captivity as an industry like any other.

In doing so, she creates a doc that is more than merely educational. Its analysis of modern capital and the business of entertainment proves as sophisticated and empathetic as the mammals – human and whale – that form its emotional centre.

Opens Friday (July 19) at TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Recently Posted