The Cove At The FCCJ

The Cove has quickly become one of the most talked-about films of the year. With its dramatic, covert footage of the dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, the documentary sparked outrage after its release in the U.S. at the end of July. In Australia, public indignation led councilors in the town of Broome to suspend its 28-year relationship with Taiji.

Over the course of three years and at a cost of $2.5 million, The Cove’s makers used guerilla filmmaking techniques and a panoply of high-tech equipment, including underwater cameras, hidden microphones and aerial drones, to capture graphic images of the dolphins’ bloody demise.

Directed by photographer Louie Psihoyos, The Cove won the Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and has received positive reviews in North America, Europe and Australia.

But it is unlikely that many people in Japan will be able to decide for themselves whether they agree with the film’s two-pronged message: that the slaughter and sale of dolphins is barbaric, and the consumption of their meat a health risk.

Although the organizers of the Tokyo International Film Festival belatedly agreed to screen the film in October in the face of mounting international pressure, there are still no plans to put it on general release in Japan.

If that remains the case, the public will be denied the opportunity to watch what The New York Times called “one of the most audacious and perilous operations in the history of the conservation movement.”

The Cove’s Japan “premiere,” at the FCCJ on Sept. 25, drew more than 150 members and guests, as the Movie Committee, thanks to sterling work from Edwin Karmiol and Karen Severns, put on one of the most popular film events in recent memory.

Over 92 minutes, Ric O’Barry and his expert crew track their attempts to record the slaughter as they are confronted by angry fishermen and questioned by visibly nervous plainclothes police officers.

There are moments of genuine tension: the nighttime forays into the cove to plant underwater cameras and microphones; the pursuit of the crew by mysterious men in white cars; and questions over the quality of the footage that are not answered until the final few minutes.

While the result – thanks to the bravery and dedication of its makers – is a technically accomplished piece of work, the film loses its focus at times.

What, for instance, is the chief objection to the dolphin slaughter? Is it the manner in which these non-endangered, though highly intelligent, mammals are killed, or the fact that their meat is contaminated? The Cove is a powerful indictment of the former, yet O’Barry later told the FCCJ audience that toxic meat is the biggest concern.

“It’s not an animal-rights issue, it’s a people issue,”
he said. “People are buying contaminated meat.
I think Taiji is the new Minamata. It’s not a food-culture issue or a cruelty issue; it’s about contaminating Japanese people.”

On the night, the chief objection to the film came from one of the film’s interviewees. Tetsuya Endo, an associate professor at the Health Sciences University in Hokkaido and an expert on environmental chemistry and toxicology, complained that The Cove was a blatant piece of environmental advocacy, not, as he had been assured, a “scientific documentary.”

“I am asking the editor to cut my appearance, because it turned out to be very different from a scientific film,” Endo said. “I never signed off on the use of my footage, so I want … [Louie Psihoyos] to apologize for using it without my permission.”

O’Barry responded: “Is there anything being said in this movie that is untrue? This is very black and white. Go to Taiji on your own and buy the dolphin meat. All you have to do is get it tested. If you find it is not toxic, I’ll go away and never come back. But if it is toxic, print that so that any Japanese person can make an intelligent decision on whether or not to eat it. Why isn’t anyone doing that?”

He railed against the domestic media for their refusal to cover the slaughter and, by extension, the public-health issues raised by the consumption of dolphin meat.

O’Barry said none of the 100 people on Tokyo’s streets to whom he showed footage of the slaughter was familiar with Taiji’s controversial side business. “If this is the culture of the Japanese people, then how come the Japanese people don’t know about it?”

And what of Taiji’s future? “Dolphin watching is the solution,” O’Barry said. “More money has been made from whale watching than during all of the years killing whales. That’s a fact. There is an alternative. There is a win-win situation.”