Blackfish (Gabriela Cowperthwaite, 2013) is an observational documentary centering around the controversy of keeping killer whales in captivity and the psychological damage imbued upon the wales themselves. We follow the orca, Tilikum and his restrictive life at the SeaWorld entertainment centre.
The documentary details Tilikum’s involvement in the deaths of three people at SeaWorld, covering his capture in 1983 and his harassment by fellow captive orcas at the entertainment centre. The film rebukes several claims made by SeaWorld concerning the lifespan of orcas in captivity, stating that killer whales have similar lifespans to humans in their natural habitat. A variety of former SeaWorld trainers are interviewed throughout the film, including John Hargrove who each detail their experiences with Tilikum and the tragedy caused by him as well as other captive whales.
The subject of whale captivity is framed in an extremely negative light, reporting that whales undergo utmost stress while in captivity. Alongside this, the separation of the whales’ offspring when captured in the wild adds further insult to injury to the suffering the whales must live through. Cowperthwaite uses a number of interesting techniques throughout the film, such as expressing different viewpoints through the process of interviewing. Additionally, the medium of animation is used to recreate specific court cases as well as to make the process of whale capturing clearer for the viewer to visualise. The narrative of the documentary is relatively nonlinear, jumping between the date of Tilikum’s capture to the deaths of several trainers. This places the narrative in a more immediate position and places the viewer within the context of each situation.
The film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and was then acquired by Magnolia Pictures and CNN for a wider release. With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 98%, the site states that “Blackfish is an aggressive, impassioned documentary that will change the way you look at performance killer whales.” Alongside this, SeaWorld suffered a $15.9 million loss and attendance declined by 5% in the first 9 months of 2013. This implies that Blackfish had a considerable impact upon the negative decline of SeaWorld as a tourist attraction.
Personally, I enjoyed Blackfish from start to finish. Prior to watching, I had little to no interest in the subject matter of orca captivity but this documentary managed to effectively spread awareness of the issue at hand. In saying this, no specific sequences particularly stood out to me and the documentary felt unnecessarily hard to follow at certain points. I believe that the underlying message that Gabriela Cowperthwaite was trying to convey was the persistent and unnoticed oppression towards killer whales and that the captivity of their species for our entertainment is inherently wrong.
Overall, I would rate Blackfish ★★★★.
Otis Morley’s A-Level Film Studies Blog 