Blog # 6

           The film, The Cove (2009), directed by Louie Psihoyos, is a movie about a man, Ric OBarry, who wanted to do everything possible to save the dolphins that were being captured off the coast in Japan in Taiji. Ric OBarry started off this epidemic of capturing dolphins when he captured five dolphins and trained then for a show called “Flipper”. After one of the dolphins died in his arms, he made the decision that he wanted to end the capturing of dolphins. This documentary is about all of the things OBarry and his crew had to do to try and end the slaughtering of the 23,000 dolphins a year in Japan. What keeps this film so entertaining is the fact that they get you into the film from the very beginning. You feel for these dolphins that are dying every day. As a viewer, you just want them to succeed with their goal of ending the killings.

        Ric OBarry explains in the beginning of the movie the attempts him and his colleagues had completed in effort to end the killings of the dolphins. While explaining, we learn how dangerous trying to end the slaughters will be and that colleagues had been killed throughout trying to complete their goal. OBarry tells the viewers that the killings were taken very serious in Japan and was kept as much as a secret as they could.

        The climax of this movie was when OBarry’s team went out to the cove to set up all of the cameras and underwater microphones. It was so intense because we didn’t know if they were going to get caught or not. Because OBarry had already been to jail multiple times and because people had been killed, it was a big deal that they didn’t get caught. The first night the crew tried to set up all of their equipment, they almost got caught and had to sneak out of the cove. Another intense part of the film was when they finally did get away and got all of the proof they wanted caught on camera. It was satisfying in a way because it made you feel like the slaughtering on the dolphins would quit but when the movie came to a conclusion it stated that the killings in Japan hadn’t been stopped so that was very unsatisfying to see. In conclusion, this film was a depressing movie. I didn’t realize how many dolphins were being killed every day. I hope it will end soon.

Blog 5 Koyaanisqatsi

          The film, Koyaanisqatsi (1983), directed by Godfrey Reggio, is a film that is very different from your average movie. This film had one word: Koyaanisqatsi, which is a Hopi Indian term for life out of balance. This film also had no characters or a plot. It takes a person with a certain mentality to watch this film and get true meaning out of it. This film is mainly videos of things that occur in a person’s everyday life but at a much faster speed then it actually happens. There are many beautiful things this film shoots such as the desert, waterfalls, clouds, sunsets, mountains, air, water, sunrises, and many more things. It helps you notice the beauty and true structure of nature and makes you realize how we, as humans, might take this everyday beauty for granted.
          This film can be looked as pure beauty if you look behind what is being shown to you as a movie and focus on the structure of nature. People don’t realize how beautiful sand is, when it’s just lying there, on the ground in perfect formation. The movie is in such high speed you notice the perfect lines that are always in the sand. When watching this movie you realize that the sand is beautiful no matter where the wind blows it. Also in this film it shows water and clouds moving at an extremely high speed. The clouds are just flowing through the sky and the waves are just rolling through the ocean. For a split second, it’s hard to tell a difference between the two of them. There are distinct straight lines through each of them and it is just another example of the true beauty of the structure of nature.
          This movie has no dialogue throughout the entirety of the film. The point of that is to leave it to the viewer to determine the message they specifically want to take away from it. When watching this film I thought that it was trying to express to the viewer that technology is taking over the world and we aren’t appreciating Mother Nature like we should. If you, just for one second, look beyond the point of the film, and just look at the structure of nature throughout the movie, you will notice the exquisiteness that surrounds us. This film did a great job showing the viewer’s how beautiful something can be without having to say more than a word. The movie has its points, but the structure of nature is so breathe taking that it can be separated from the arguments and ethics this movie tries to prove.