The Cove (2009)

Last week, I watched one of the most suspenseful documentaries. It is some what old – shot in 2009’s . If you love nature, then you should watch this. With a movie like The Cove comes a danger of narrow perspective — this documentary is about exposing the slaughter of dolphins by the fisherman of Taiji, a small coastal town in Japan, responsible for most of the world’s captive dolphins and dolphin meat. So why should we feel more sympathy for dolphins as opposed to all the other animals various people slaughter the world over?

As the movie states, Taiji, Japan is a little town with a big secret: There, more than 23,000 dolphins are slaughtered annually — the rejects of an auction for trainers seeking dolphins for theme-park shows. “The Cove” married ecological espionage to a frightening domino effect of imperialism, political corruption and a socio-environmental disregard.The Cove may well be the one that sticks with you longest. While any movie about the slaughter of dolphins is going to hit you in your gut, this documentary is also as well made as anything released all year, blending hard facts, cold scientific reason plus the thrills of a Hollywood spy movie to terrific effect.

The narrator is Richard O’Barry who, in the 1960s, trained the dolphins used in the Flipper TV show. But when one of these intelligent mammals apparently committed suicide in his arms by voluntarily closing her blowhole, he realised something was terribly wrong. Now a passionate animal rights activist, he attempts here to film a secretive dolphin hunt at a remote cove in Taiji, Japan, where thousands are caught each year, some to be killed for meat, the rest to be sold to theme parks.