Review #663: 'Blackfish' (2013)

Anyone who has seen 2009's heartbreaking Oscar-winner The Cove will know just how ugly the reality is behind being able to enjoy marine mammals at zoo's or sealife parks. Blackfish could work almost as a sequel, as where The Cove left us with a sea of blood amidst the entrapment and capture of a group of dolphins, Blackfish shows us the life of a group of killer whales in captivity at Sea World, more than likely where most of The Cove's dolphins would have ended up. What the film has in abundance is an archive of disturbing video footage showing unprovoked attacks by orca's on experienced trainers, which is something that Sea World executives have brushed off as trainer errors.

Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite went into the film intending of making a documentary on Dawn Brancheau, the former Sea World trainer who was killed in 2010 by Sea World's most notorious orca, Tilikum. Yet what she uncovered with the help of interviews from former Sea World trainers was obviously too difficult to simply ignore. Brancheau's unfortunate death wasn't a one-off, nor was it the first time Tilikum had been responsible for the death of a trainer (it was the third), but it was the latest in a long line of deaths, mutilations and lucky escapes by orca's on both the trainers and on each other. The most unnerving of them all is the attack on Kenneth Peters, where the killer whale Kasatka drags him under water for long periods of time as if issuing a threat.

But it's not in the video footage that Blackfish retains it's power, but in the testimonies given by those who experienced it first hand. Each interviewee seems riddled with guilt that they didn't do more for the orca's, and they give tearful recollections of the signs they failed to see. Sea World declined to be interviewed for the film, and it's of no surprise. The images are so damning that there is simply nothing they can say. Trainers would naively sign up being told tales of trainer misconduct being responsible for the near-fatalities or simply hushed up to avoid bad press. It's not an easy watch, especially those with a weak-stomach for real-life moments of horror, but this is a powerful film, exposing cruelty and corporate cover-ups on an appalling scale. It seems money is worth more than basic compassion for a fellow intelligent creature.


Directed by: Gabriela Cowperthwaite
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie