Sundance. "The Cove"

Sundance. "The Cove"

By David Hudson on 01/21/2009

"My childhood dream was to become a marine biologist and grow gills," writes Bilge Ebiri at Screengrab, "so I should probably fess up to being a particularly apt target audience for Louie Psihoyos's devastating documentary about the slaughter of dolphins in the small Japanese town of Taiji. To simply label 'The Cove' a movie about dolphin-killing, though, would be inaccurate. Much of it is devoted to a portrait of Richard O'Barry, a dolphin rights activist whose journey could have come out of some bizarre post-modern American novel." And Bilge's interviewed him for New York.

Updated through 1/26.

"I don't have any strong opinion about the rare and widely reviled practice of dolphin-fishing, but I accept that dolphins are extraordinary animals, and that our seas are over-fished already, and that the larger ocean-dwellers contain toxic levels of mercury that make their meat largely unsafe for consumption," writes Noel Murray at the AV Club. "Yet because 'The Cove' largely keeps the Japanese point-of-view about whaling and dolphin-fishing limited to a few inarticulate or thuggish boobs, I was more irritated by the sloppy, slanted journalism than convinced that Psihoyos and company's cause is just."

"A production of the Oceanic Preservation Society, funded by Netscape founder Jim Clark, 'The Cove' is in part a very well supplied heist-style stunt that someone in the film compares to 'Ocean's Eleven,'" writes Alison Willmore here at IFC. "While anyone can watch the dolphins be rounded up and offered to trainers as potential performers, for obvious PR reasons no one's allowed to witness what follows, when the remaining animals are herded into a secluded area to be slaughtered by local fishermen."

"Eco-activist documentaries don't get much more compelling than 'The Cove,'" writes Justin Chang in Variety. "Casting a very wide net, this powerful polemic is simultaneously a love letter to a beloved species, an eye-opening primer on worldwide dolphin captivity, a playful paranoid thriller and a work of deep-seated (if sometimes hot-headed) moral outrage."

Psihoyos tells the story behind the doc in Moving Pictures.

Alicia Van Couvering profiles him for Filmmaker.

IndieWIRE interviews Psihoyos.

Psihoyos answers Filmmaker's query as to how the story was "shaped by the social, technological and economic forces affecting cinema today."

Update, 1/22: Andrew O'Hehir talks with O'Barry and Psihoyos for Salon.

Update, 1/24: "This is easily one of the most powerful, heartfelt, and (yes, I'll say it) important 'nature' documentaries I've ever seen," writes Scott Weinberg at Cinematical.

Update, 1/26: A "devastating, beautifully shot and occasionally hilarious filmmaking debut," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "[D]ocumentary audiences are looking for passion, emotion and memorable images, and 'The Cove' supplies plenty to spare while making its case, which goes well beyond dolphins to encompass the overall fate of the world's oceans."

[Photo: "The Cove," Oceanic Preservation Society, 2009]

For more coverage of the coverage, click the tag: Sundance 2009. And here's everything IFC.com's up to in Park City - video, reviews, podcasts, the works.

Tags: Louie Psihoyos, Richard O'Barry, Sundance 2009, The Cove