Ratings
The Daily: 4.5 of 5 stars
Rotten Tomatoes: 67%
More on 'The Whale'
IMDB
Official Website
We already know that killer whales rarely live up to their names, as far as humans are concerned. “Free Willy” taught us that. But now, a new documentary has come along to show us just how devastating the orca can be — to our emotions, at least.
Take the most heart-wrenching animal movie you’ve ever seen, multiply it by a few tons and you have some idea of how massively affecting Suzanne Chisholm and Michael Parfit’s “The Whale” is. It is rated G, and as far as the content goes, that’s fair. However, its impact is potentially more brutal than the biggest, fastest great white shark ever caught on film. This movie will leave you feeling destroyed.
“The Whale” is a repackaging of the 2008 documentary “Saving Luna,” which will now get a wider audience thanks to the executive producing of Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds (as narrator, he’s the hot rapper on this remix). The doc tells the tale of Luna, a 1-year-old orca that showed up in July 2001 in a human-frequented fjord called Nootka Sound in Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Immediately, we see the young whale announce himself as a peaceful, playful force. Then it becomes clear that he’s desperate for the attention he’s been missing since being mysteriously separated from his pod. As Reynolds says in his narration, “He decided if you can’t be with the species you are, make friends with the species you are with.”
And the humans he encounters make the same decision: To know Luna is to bond with Luna, and the great triumph of “The Whale” is that it shows exactly why. We’re treated to footage of what is essentially a giant sea puppy — curious, fetching (in multiple ways), clever and emitting an otherworldly sense of serenity, Luna is adorable on screen. Much is made of his eyes, which Reynolds describes as going “far beyond the edge of the unknown.” Many refer to him as a “little whale,” which may be true in relation to adult whales, but also illustrates this aquatic mammoth’s massive cuteness. The movie also negotiates the slippery slope of anthropomorphism by quoting the view of at least one scientist, Lance Barrett-Lennard, who says applying “human” qualities to animals might not be as off-base as previously thought, in light of research on the emotional lives of animals. Whales can feel lonely. They can make friends.
It is extraordinary to see this much footage of a killer whale appearing to be so gleeful. What we are treated to in “The Whale” is the rare instance of an orca that has seemingly elected to have prolonged interaction with humans, rather than the other way around. To watch him do this (and without the depressed dorsal-fin collapse frequently seen in captive whales) is worth the price of admission.
But it’s also the root of the documentary’s conflict. As good as it feels to interact with Luna (“The greatest honor was being allowed to be his friend,” is how one of the doc’s principal characters, Jamie, a member of the local Mowachaht tribe, puts it), many worry that bonding with humans isn’t good for this whale. As behavioral and wildlife biologist Toni Frohoff explains, the more time dolphins and whales spend with people, the more likely they are to be injured and killed. And so, a plan is hatched to limit interaction with Luna: The Luna Stewardship Project is formed to keep those cruising around Nootka Sound from touching, interacting with or even looking in the eyes of Luna. But little keeps the whale’s spirit down. We see footage of patrollers yelling, “This
is not a watchable whale!” while Luna nuzzles the side of their boat, instantly contradicting their words. “Touching him is $100,000 a pop,” says another, and in a moment, Luna emerges out of the water between the patrolling boat and the offending one, to give the steward what looks like a kiss.
The battle over what to do with Luna is complicated by the Mowachahts, who believe that Luna is an incarnation of a revered member of their tribe who died just days before the whale showed up in Nootka Sound. An attempt to capture Luna in order to reunite him with his family (and, failing that, to stick him in an aquarium) provides the most suspenseful on-screen chase this year that Hollywood didn’t produce. Meanwhile, the lack of consistency in Luna’s treatment — the on-again-off-again human bonding — provokes directors Suzanne Chisholm and Michael Parfit to step out of their roles as journalists and become advocates (Parfit lobbies for a makeshift pod made out of boats that will allow Luna the contact he seems to crave).
We won’t reveal the movie’s final chapter, but know that it is devastating, enough to shake up the perceptions of bad guys, good guys and responsibility that the movie has laid out up to that point. Yes, we’re watching a once-in-a-lifetime interaction with a virtually unknown species (Reynolds compares Luna to an “intelligent being from another world”), but we’re also seeing a tragedy unfurl. “The Whale” tugs at the heartstrings while being a movie about the fatality of emotions. Its deceptively straightforward narrative proves Rorschachian, in that it provides more questions than answers (“Was he a problem or a spirit? Or was he just a lonely kid?” wonders Reynolds toward the end of the film). “The Whale” is at once infuriating and life-affirming. That may sound contradictory, but so is life.
The Daily: 4.5 of 5 stars
Rotten Tomatoes: 67%
More on 'The Whale'
IMDB
Official Website
We already know that killer whales rarely live up to their names, as far as humans are concerned. “Free Willy” taught us that. But now, a new documentary has come along to show us just how devastating the orca can be — to our emotions, at least.
Take the most heart-wrenching animal movie you’ve ever seen, multiply it by a few tons and you have some idea of how massively affecting Suzanne Chisholm and Michael Parfit’s “The Whale” is. It is rated G, and as far as the content goes, that’s fair. However, its impact is potentially more brutal than the biggest, fastest great white shark ever caught on film. This movie will leave you feeling destroyed.
“The Whale” is a repackaging of the 2008 documentary “Saving Luna,” which will now get a wider audience thanks to the executive producing of Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds (as narrator, he’s the hot rapper on this remix). The doc tells the tale of Luna, a 1-year-old orca that showed up in July 2001 in a human-frequented fjord called Nootka Sound in Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Immediately, we see the young whale announce himself as a peaceful, playful force. Then it becomes clear that he’s desperate for the attention he’s been missing since being mysteriously separated from his pod. As Reynolds says in his narration, “He decided if you can’t be with the species you are, make friends with the species you are with.”
And the humans he encounters make the same decision: To know Luna is to bond with Luna, and the great triumph of “The Whale” is that it shows exactly why. We’re treated to footage of what is essentially a giant sea puppy — curious, fetching (in multiple ways), clever and emitting an otherworldly sense of serenity, Luna is adorable on screen. Much is made of his eyes, which Reynolds describes as going “far beyond the edge of the unknown.” Many refer to him as a “little whale,” which may be true in relation to adult whales, but also illustrates this aquatic mammoth’s massive cuteness. The movie also negotiates the slippery slope of anthropomorphism by quoting the view of at least one scientist, Lance Barrett-Lennard, who says applying “human” qualities to animals might not be as off-base as previously thought, in light of research on the emotional lives of animals. Whales can feel lonely. They can make friends.
It is extraordinary to see this much footage of a killer whale appearing to be so gleeful. What we are treated to in “The Whale” is the rare instance of an orca that has seemingly elected to have prolonged interaction with humans, rather than the other way around. To watch him do this (and without the depressed dorsal-fin collapse frequently seen in captive whales) is worth the price of admission.
But it’s also the root of the documentary’s conflict. As good as it feels to interact with Luna (“The greatest honor was being allowed to be his friend,” is how one of the doc’s principal characters, Jamie, a member of the local Mowachaht tribe, puts it), many worry that bonding with humans isn’t good for this whale. As behavioral and wildlife biologist Toni Frohoff explains, the more time dolphins and whales spend with people, the more likely they are to be injured and killed. And so, a plan is hatched to limit interaction with Luna: The Luna Stewardship Project is formed to keep those cruising around Nootka Sound from touching, interacting with or even looking in the eyes of Luna. But little keeps the whale’s spirit down. We see footage of patrollers yelling, “This
is not a watchable whale!” while Luna nuzzles the side of their boat, instantly contradicting their words. “Touching him is $100,000 a pop,” says another, and in a moment, Luna emerges out of the water between the patrolling boat and the offending one, to give the steward what looks like a kiss.
The battle over what to do with Luna is complicated by the Mowachahts, who believe that Luna is an incarnation of a revered member of their tribe who died just days before the whale showed up in Nootka Sound. An attempt to capture Luna in order to reunite him with his family (and, failing that, to stick him in an aquarium) provides the most suspenseful on-screen chase this year that Hollywood didn’t produce. Meanwhile, the lack of consistency in Luna’s treatment — the on-again-off-again human bonding — provokes directors Suzanne Chisholm and Michael Parfit to step out of their roles as journalists and become advocates (Parfit lobbies for a makeshift pod made out of boats that will allow Luna the contact he seems to crave).
We won’t reveal the movie’s final chapter, but know that it is devastating, enough to shake up the perceptions of bad guys, good guys and responsibility that the movie has laid out up to that point. Yes, we’re watching a once-in-a-lifetime interaction with a virtually unknown species (Reynolds compares Luna to an “intelligent being from another world”), but we’re also seeing a tragedy unfurl. “The Whale” tugs at the heartstrings while being a movie about the fatality of emotions. Its deceptively straightforward narrative proves Rorschachian, in that it provides more questions than answers (“Was he a problem or a spirit? Or was he just a lonely kid?” wonders Reynolds toward the end of the film). “The Whale” is at once infuriating and life-affirming. That may sound contradictory, but so is life.
