The Cove is a cinema verite piece, and the point of view of the director is easily ascertained. There are pieces that are left directly for observation purposes, but most of the action is set up in a way that it's obvious which characters are on the right side, and which are shown to be misled, manipulative, and evil.
Ric O'Barry is set up from the beginning to be our protagonist, and it is easy to sympathize with his dramatic story of Kathy. In one moving scene, he talks about her death:
Ric: they can end their life whenever life becomes too unbearable by not taking the next breath. And it's in that context I use the word suicide. She did that. She swam into my arms, looked me right in the eye, and took a breath ... and didn't take another one.
As we are lead through his personal change of heart in regards to dolphin captivity, we gain an understanding of his drive as well as an increase in empathy for the dolphins. Because dolphins are already a beloved animal, the filmmakers start out with an advantage. They don't have to do much convincing that dolphins are worthy of saving, and that their mistreatment is a terrible injustice. But one of the great techniques in this film is that they don't make any assumptions, but take the time to strengthen their position. Ric comes across in the film as sincere, emotionally invested, and very deeply troubled by the wrongs committed in Taiji.
In many documentaries, suspense is a very difficult thing to accomplish. I think that's one of the areas this movie excels at. The clandestine operation to film the barbaric hunting is suspenseful and entertaining. From the construction of the hidden cameras to the late-night plants, suspense about whether the team will be successful is built up and maintained.
The diplomatic struggle within the IWC was intriguing. The role of Joji Morishita as the story's villain didn't even require him to speak. The intrigue with the alleged vote-buying was an interesting side story to the main interest.
Another strongly related side-note was the mercury poisoning aspect of the dolphin meat. The movie took the time to explain the risks, showing the damage to children in Minamata. Those images were powerful, especially when placed side-by-side with healthy children eating dolphin meat in their school lunch. This was an instance of well-done editing telling the story better than words.
Sometimes in documentaries, after talking about a certain event for the length of the film, when you get around to actually seeing what they've been talking about you're bored with it, and it doesn't quite meet up to built up expectations. This didn't happen here. The actual images of the dolphin "hunt" were emotionally disturbing. After all the times the slaughter was talked about and around, the actual video was still as bad as expected -- maybe worse.
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