In Taiji every year over 23,000 dolphins are slaughtered. Fishermen capture panicked dolphins by using walls of intrusive sound and herding them into a bay. It's here that dolphin-trainers come from all around Japan to capture the healthiest looking specimens to take back to their water parks. The others are moved to the Cove, brutually slaughtered and sold on for meat. This meat in turn is reconstituted into other meat, and ignoring the fact that dolphin meat has a dangerously high mercury content, sold on throughout Japan. This meat was responsible for many pregnant ladies damaging their unborn children in Minamata Bay.
O'Barry hand picked a team of film makers, free-divers, technical guys and assistants to catch out the men who are responsible for these actions. The film follows them, their plans to hide high-definition camera in the rocks of the bay and the eventual uncovering of Japan's secret at the International Whale Meeting. Mainly constructed with one-on-one interviews with various prominant figures in the uncovering attept and in the wider world of anti-animal cruelty, the film's fast, exciting pace is utterly compelling and the style lends itself well to revealing the truth. It's as if everything has a direct, knock on, even more devasting effect, and by the end of the film I couldn't make any sense of why this monstorous act occurs.
It's a powerful piece of film-making that, if seen by enough people could actually make a great deal of good and actually make a difference.
Go to http://www.takepart.com/thecove for more details.
