The Film Thugs Movie Show

Double Downer Documentary Review

School is out and I am living the film lovers dream. I stay up late, sleep as much as I want and watch whatever movies I feel like watching whenever I feel like watching them. So I thought, what better way to kick this season off than two thoroughly depressing documentaries? In less than 24 hours I watched "The Cove," and "The Bridge," and I figured that instead of throwing two different piles of depression at your feet I might as well rip off the band aid and get it all out of the way in one painful shot.

"The Cove"

Two things. First this is a very, VERY one sided movie that borders on propaganda. Second, it is a very good movie that is very one sided and borders on propaganda. For those unaware, this is a movie about the city of Taiji, Japan where every year dolphins are driven from their natural migratory route into a cove where they are made available for purchase to different water parks around the world. This part is public knowledge and people from all over the world got o see the adorable bottle nosed dolphins go through the selection process. What is less than public is how the remaining dolphins are then moved to a hidden cove to the side and slaughtered, and I do mean slaughtered.

This is a fascinating documentary in many ways, mostly because of how most of the footage is obtained. We are not talking Michael Moore ambush tactics, we are talking James Bond style shit. They work with free divers, military grade night vision and thermal cameras, custom designed fake rock camera enclosures and get some of the most striking and disturbing footage I have ever seen.

"The Cove" is also very unique in how it is structured. This is more of a thriller than a conventional documentary. The level of clandestine operating that goes into it is outright stunning. There are moments of absolute dread in it as people are sneaking into highly restricted areas to plant cameras so that they might expose this horror to the world. It is very powerful and affecting. By and large this cloak and dagger angle is played up considerably and kind of leaves the other aspects of their message behind.

I did like this movie but I do have some problems with it. My problems are summed up this way. Imagine a group of foreigners, lets go with Italians, snuck into the US, broke US laws, and made a move about the cattle industry for release outside of the US saying "look at how horrible you are! YOU NEED TO STOP!" Would that bother you? The reaction here would be similar to how the Japanese react to it. First, it's not in my language and therefore not made for me. Second, that is kind of a rude thing to do. Third, the Japanese don't really care about what the world thinks when it comes to whaling and killing dolphins. If this were made to really get the attention of the Japanese it would probably be in Japanese and try to get the people to change how they approach these things. Approach them gently and respectfully and appeal to their decency. This was made to get people outside of Japan upset and try to force change from the outside. I am not trying to start any shit here, I am just throwing this out there for though.

There is an agenda here but it kind of gets lost in the flash of the production. They shift from how wrong it is to kill dolphins this way to how wrong it is to kill whales to the danger of mercury in dolphins that is somehow not present in whales to the corruption of Japan in getting countries to side with them on the international whaling commission. Were this a movie solely about "The Cove," as the title might lead one to believe, then it should focus entirely on what happens there.

That is the problem I have with this film. I liked it and was incredibly moved by it, but the impact it had was purely visceral. Even now it is difficult to focus on what the message was other than "Japan is bad for doing this." It is pretty scattershot and very one sided.

In the end what you have is a movie that will evoke strong emotions and reinforce opinions you already had. I think a more focused approach might give the film's impact more staying power.

This is very much the way of modern documentary. The filmmakers become the subject, you are fed their opinions, and the audience gets taken in by a slickly packaged piece of propaganda (I am not using this term in a derogatory way, it is a simple statement of fact).

But I did find it very entertaining and affecting.

"The Bridge"

My mother is from the Bay Area and as a result I have grown up with a very romanticized and poetic view of San Francisco and areas outlying. My grandfather actually owned a construction company there and was responsible for much of the beautiful skyline. That beauty is a big part of what makes this movie so powerful.

Put simply, this is a movie about the people who choose The Golden Gate Bridge to commit suicide. The question that permeates the film is why is such a beautiful, idyllic location the most popular suicide spot in the world. There is an average of one suicide there every two weeks, and over 1200 have been recorded.

The filmmakers set up cameras in areas around the bridge and using telephoto lenses watched people on the bridge for a year. In the end they recorded 23 of the 24 known suicides committed that year. I know this might seem ghoulish, I know you are thinking why didn't they do something to stop them. Well, yes it is a bit ghoulish, but these are people who are choosing a very public, very tourist and family popular spot to do this. In many ways they are consenting to be filmed when they decide to jump. The reason they don't do anything to stop them is that until they jump, all they are doing is walking across the bridge by themselves.

Somehow this film pulls off the amazing feat of dancing the fine line between being tactlessly morbid and remarkably sensitive, between being deeply disturbing and viscerally fascinating.

There are interviews with the friends and family members of the jumpers caught on film. There are interviews with people who witnessed the jumpers and one man who pulled someone back from the edge. This movie quietly stays with you. This might seem an odd statement, but it is fitting. This won't cause a breakdown or shatter your view of the world, but the awareness of how present the darkness felt by some people is cannot be denied. You are forced to reconcile the image of this stunningly gorgeous monument to human endeavor sitting above one of the most strikingly beautiful areas on the planet with the sadness of people choosing to end their lives.

I did speak with my mother about this film and she told me that she knew someone who had a parent end their life there when she was younger. Her history, however, did not shut her off to the film, rather it made her more interested in seeing it.

Before this movie The Golden Gate Bridge always brought images of family and cold breezes in the middle of summer and cable car rides and Ghirardelli chocolate. I guess what this movie does is make you realize that there is more than one way to look at anything, and that sometimes we are blind to the pain felt by those walking right beside us.