The mysterious cove: what happens behind that cliff?

The Cove
Directed by: Louie Psihoyos
Starring: Ric O’Barry, Simon Hutchins, Mandy-Rae Cruikshank, Kirk Krack, Charles Hambleton
Released by: Madman

The Cove is unashamedly a work of activist cinema: director Louie Psihoyos is executive director of the Oceanic Preservation Society, a non-profit organisation of photographers, filmmakers and activists that aims to use visual media to show environmental degradation in the world’s oceans and seas.

But this is an unusual documentary in that it turns its own production into a gripping narrative, with the production team as major characters. This is vastly preferable to being lectured for one-and-a-half hours. The Cove is structured almost like a heist movie: we meet the members of our crack team, discover what they’re up against, see their preparations and then, marvellously, we see them pull off the sting.

And what’s that, precisely? Helping Ric O’Barry, renowned dolphin trainer turned dolphin rights activist, document the mass killings of wild dolphins in Taiji, Japan. As a young man, O’Barry largely founded the performing dolphin industry when he captured and trained the five dolphins who played Flipper in the TV series of the same name. Later, he came to reject the cruelty of keeping wild dolphins in captivity purely for entertainment. He’s been arrested countless times while attempting to return dolphins to the wild, and academic conferences are afraid to have him deliver keynote addresses in case their funding gets pulled.

O’Barry is especially unpopular in Taiji, a town whose livelihood depends on dolphin tourism. It’s public knowledge that locals capture wild dolphins for marine parks, but O’Barry suspects the rest are slaughtered and their meat – which contains dangerously high levels of mercury – is sold publicly as “whale meat”. In general, the film is heavily critical of Japan’s whaling practices and its attempts to bribe members of the International Whaling Commission. Former Australian environment minister Ian Campbell – who vociferously criticised Japan in the IWC – features prominently.

Trouble is, the alleged slaughter takes place in a cove invisible from land, and local police and fishermen aggressively prevent anyone from accessing it. Now the OPS thinks it can mount a guerrilla operation to provide O’Barry with the documentary proof he needs to show the world what’s happening in Taiji – and here’s where The Cove gets exciting.

The intrepid team with their dolphin-shaped spy plane.

The OPS staff who form “Oceanic’s Eleven” are a marvellously mixed bunch. Expedition director Simon Hutchins, ex-Canadian Air Force, boasts skills including diving, yachting and high-tech avionics. Free divers Mandy-Rae Cruikshank and Kirk Krack can infiltrate the area almost silently and without equipment, while production coordinator Joseph Chisholm’s background in logistics for major music festivals makes him adept at transporting and managing gear.

There are also Hollywood set builders who make fake rocks housing hidden cameras, a dolphin-shaped spy plane to film aerial footage of the cove, and marine DNA specialist Scott Baker, who sets up a portable lab that can test whether meat is dolphin or whale.

In early scenes, O’Barry comes across as an activist nutcase, so paranoid and wrapped up in his cause he forgets how ridiculous he must seem like to outsiders. But he becomes more sympathetic as he explains his motivations, and on the whole The Cove manages to avoid the absurdity that comes from taking it message too seriously. Helped along by a thoughtful score by J Ralph (Man On Wire), there’s genuine tension and, when the infiltration operation is complete, some powerful (and graphic) scenes shot inside the cove.

Archival footage and music add extra punch – David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ (”I wish I could swim/like dolphins, like dolphins can swim”) is an especially inspired choice. Make sure you stay until the very end for a delightful post-credits scene.