Documentary Review:
BLACKFISH
Blackfish is a documentary on Netflix about orca "killer" whales, and the name "blackfish" actually refers to what the First Nations people and the old fishermen on the West coast call orca whales, due to their mostly black coloring. This documentary follows the life of a whale named Tilikum through all his years in captivity, explaining the behaviors and differences between wild vs captive whales. Tilikum had multiple points in his life where he showed very aggressive behavior, which is not unlike many whales that are held in captivity. The whales that the documentary focuses on started at a small captivity center, Sealand of the Pacific, in Victoria, Canada. After a "freak" accident, in which a marine biology student, competitive swimmer, and part time worker at Sealand, got pulled into the water by Tilikum, and killed. This death was blamed on the females in captivity with Tilikum, and the death was never followed up on with the audience to the show. After this death, Sealand closed and sold Tilikum to SeaWorld (striking similarity in name). After this, the story line delves deeper into the history and nature of the animals, as well as specific events that happened within the SeaWorld walls. The main point is how captivity really changes the emotional nature and physical nature of these majestic, peaceful, intelligent and incredibly complex creatures.
Something I found really interesting was the use of SeaWorld commercials in some parts of the documentary. It really illustrates how SeaWorld tries to show itself to the world, compared to what is actually going on behind it's walls. The whole premise of the commercials is "believe", and they produced the idea that these whales were stars and they were meant to be performing like this. However, this is very untrue, as proven by heart wrenching scenes. Ones that I found particularly important were those in which it was explained that whales are much more complex than most people think. Whales are incredibly intelligent creatures. Each community of whales has a completely different set of behaviors, including languages. One of the many people interviewed was a neurologist, who took a brain scan of an orca brain. Orcas have a part of the brain that even humans don't have, another system to process emotions. They have a sense of self, as well as this incredibly complex ability to form emotional relationships. These emotional relationships are displayed by multiple scenes in which they show beached whales, and explanations on how they stay as a group even though they're all going to be in trouble, and another scene in which a whole pod works together to get food rather than each whale fending for itself. Another way these complex relationships are illustrated are the bonds between mother and child. There was a mother who was not especially vocal, and her child was ripped away from her to be sent to another location. This mother stayed in the corner of her tank, shaking, crying, screeching, and aching for her child. One of the women interviewed explained it as, "there was nothing you could call that... besides grief". Two of the cutest scenes I saw was at 24:17, where it showed an orca playing in the water spout off of a ship, and 24:27, where there was an orca along the side of a small boat, where people were reaching off and petting it's nose. These two scenes displayed the friendliness and playfulness of these incredible animals. One of the interviewees stated, "To this day, there there is no record of any orca doing any harm to any human in the wild," which really shows viewers that it's not the whale itself that is aggressive, it is the development of frustration and anger with their captivity that drives these peaceful creatures to terrible acts such as murder or harming their caretakers. One shot I thought was particularly cinematic was this shot that was used multiple times throughout the film. It's a video of this pod of whales swimming along a line of trees, blowing water out of their blowholes. I think it's very beautiful, and the music that accompanies it really just makes it into a moment where viewers can really appreciate the animals for the majestic creatures they are. During one of these shots, one of the interviewees is relating the whales to humans, saying that they have generally about the same lifespan as humans in the wild,contrary to the popular belief that whales live longer in captivity, where they only live for about 20-35 years. This myth was also talked about later, showing tapes of SeaWorld employees spreading that rumor, trying to convince people that whales living in captivity live to be older than they would in the wild. Another rumor spread by the SeaWorld employees that was featured in the documentary was about the dorsal fin on orca whales. Employees stated that "25% of whales have a fin that turns over like that when they get older," but of course that isn't true. Another interviewee stated that dorsal collapse happens in less than 1% of wild killer whales. The difference is captivity. I couldn't see much acting involved with this project, because most of the people were scientists or those who had worked first hand with the whales. The whole time I was thinking about shot angles and the rule of thirds, because I know how important it is to balance the shot and different angles of the same person makes the interview a lot more interesting. The B roll in this film I thought was particularly good, because they had actual footage of the whales with the exact events they were talking about, whether it was a show, a video taken by one of the audience members, SeaWorld commercials, or the deaths of people/animals. Music was less noticeable, but nonetheless important to the overall feel of a certain part of this documentary.
I would absolutely recommend this film. I thought it was wonderful as a film to have a critical eye with, but also as just an interesting documentary to spend an hour and a half watching. My mom actually walked in while I was watching it, and I talked about it for a while because I found the documentary and the topic so interesting, so she decided to watch it later that night. The topic of animals (more specifically whales) in captivity is a large conversation being had today, and I think it's important for people to be informed on topics like these that impact the daily lives of other creatures on this Earth, as well as humans. The scenes that really hit me hard were scenes that whales were hurt or harmed, specifically Tilikum, as when he was forced into close captivity with females they would use their teeth to make marks in his skin, and often he would bleed and his outer skin was covered in scars from these instances, or when whales would try to assert their dominance on one another and accidentally kill the other whale (an example used in the film was one whale body slamming another to show their dominance, but this slam broke the jaw of the other whale, which punctured an artery. That whale bled out in it's tank). There were also multiple points in which interviewees would start crying because of how much they regret their previous decisions, or realizing there was nothing they were doing to help the whales, no matter how much they cared for and loved them. They were realizing that it wasn't right. I personally believe that everyone should watch this documentary, but not let it cloud all of their judgement about captive animals. For many zoos, having those animals captive and breeding them that way is keeping those populations alive. But for those animals in which their populations are not endangered, when their habitats aren't being destroyed, animals are much better off without us interfering in their lives, and this documentary really sets that idea concrete in many viewers heads. This documentary uses both emotion and true, hard facts to explain to the viewer why places like SeaWorld are so harmful to animals, and how creatures on this Earth aren't just for human entertainment.