When I was around the age of 12 or 13, I went on a Taekwon Do trip to a tournament in Anchorage with a group of fellow martial artists. The fellow travelers were all young, but still 5-6 years older than I was. After the tournament one night we went out to a local pizza joint (where I got a nasty case of food poisoning!) and was being teased by two of the older boys. While we drove around and checked out a shopping center, I was feeling very upset and hurt by the things the boys said to me. The one other girl that was traveling with us broke off from the group for a while and returned with a gift for me. It was a silver necklace with two dolphins as a charm. I still have that necklace and it brings the fond memory of the friendship that I had with the girl.
The cove was an eye opening and very emotionally moving documentary. When we first started watching the film, I had very little knowledge of what was happening to the dolphins in Taiji other than that fact that it was awarded the Academy Award for Best Documentary. I did not even know much about dolphins in general. The combination of the personification of dolphins and the brutality of the imagery provided in this film made it very convincing and eye-opening.
At times the anticipation and anxiety that the movie evoked made it feel as if I was watching an action movie. It created a good-guy/ bad-guy bearing between those who were attempting to expose the slaughtering that dolphins and those committing the slaughtering. The evidence of the objections and investigations by the Japanese solidifies the fact that they obviously had something to hide. The footage from the streets of the larger cities in Japan showed that the dolphin killing was not a cultural aspect, furthering the argument that what they were doing was cruel and unfair (not to mention illegal on some level).
The use of the Japanese people’s aesthetics of all the happy and anime-ish whales and dolphins frustrated me. I also think this is what the New York Times reviewer meant when he described this film as a “Trojan Horse”. It is a metaphor for the films use of the Japanese contradictions involving the “love” and care for dolphins and ultimately ocean life.
I found my reaction to the film shocking. I am by nature an emotional person, but I pride myself on being able to distance myself enough from the one-sidedness of arguments like those presented in this film. But I could not help the anger and frustration that it made me feel. I had to keep telling myself that what was going on in Taiji was unknown to the general population, that it was not all Japanese people who had a part in the killing of 23,000 dolphins a year. I told everyone that would listen after seeing this film about what I had learned, and felt an emence powerless that I couldn’t just fly to Japan and single handily end it. And I know that I am not alone in the idea. The Japanese people should feel an objection to this film due to the emotions and anger that it can cause viewers to feel towards the Japanese people and culture. Instead of objecting and critisizing this film of some kind of slander, they should do something about the dolphin industry in Japan.
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