Since it had me bawling my eyes out back in the Holiday Village theater in Park City, I've been keeping tabs on the trajectory, and the kind of impact that Louie Psihoyos’ The Cove has had on others. So far, the film festival circuit has been extremely kind to the pro dolphin documentary handing the doc audience awards left and right. It bodes well for the theatrical release later this month. So what is my beef against activist documentaries and why is it the Lemon of the Week?
No need to leave hate mail comments, I'm a huge supporter of progressive, activist docu-filmmaking (I imagine the form was pioneered during the Vietnam War) and I'm grateful for film examples who have become part of the agent for change and at the same time ask audiences to be a little bit more pro-active in their lives. You can't fault a doc filmmaker or the documentary film subject for having a skewed/determined/not totally objective position; their obligations are to sway their documentary by whatever means necessary and make their argument stronger. I could mention Michel Moore's films and use Al Gore's failure to mention the fundamental problem in An Inconvenient Truth as a reference points, but I'll use The Cove as the freshest example as to why filmmakers, distributors, producers have a moral obligation to do more than just inform the public. They need to place a huge warning label on their own films so that viewers in the end, do utilize better judgement.
Reactions such as the one from an influential film critic/blogger such as Jeffrey Wells demonstrates how misguided people are in directing their rage. Unlike Wells, I wouldn't be so quick to make villainize fisherman in the small Japanese town of Taijii – their acts are atrocious, unjust and sickening to say the least, and when Wells mentions “You come out The Cove wanting to fly the next day to Taiji, Japan, in order to kick some Japanese dolphin-slaughtering ass”... one wonders how many people won't make the connection that the same callous act as making lunch box meal out of flipper is exactly the same as sticking a fork in a steak or having eggs and bacon for breakfast. You get the feeling that it is only the cute animals that deserved to be saved on his planet and if you are an unlikely species then you won't get your own documentary film. Hayden Panettiere saves dolphins but is the spokesmodel for a line leather handbags and then you have The Cove's official website who promotes protecting one species of sentient beings, while almost promoting the extinction of another. It's almost as if when you have an activist docus and come across as well intentioned and wanting to do good, then people don't ask enough of the important follow up questions, and let the docu-filmmaker connect the dots for them. Very dangerous. Time for activist docus to remind viewers that they have their own agenda and are primarily serving their own interests.
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