<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">On Friday, "The Cove" had its first screening in Japan at the FCCJ. Actually, there were two simultaneous screenings, because the venue was so packed that Karen Severns, the film programmer and event organizer, opened a second room downstairs to accommodate everybody. <div><br></div><div>Coverage by the Japan Times is here:<div><br></div><div><a href="http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090927a3.html">http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090927a3.html</a></div><div><br></div><div>Overall, "The Cove" is a fairly polished production. More so than, say, "Darwin's Nightmare". There's a lot of underwater photography and clearly they had significant budget. As a documentary, it's complicated, highly ambitious, and of course not unproblematic. My sense was that the film goes some length to control its animal rights appeal, trying to avoid the kind of overt sentimentalism that would cause people who are indifferent/unsympathetic to tune it out. Yes, it is foregrounded in the film, and some will find that objectionable, but there are actually quite a few different claims being made, e.g. about the fishing industry, environmental pollution, government policy, food culture, and Japan's strategy to control the International Whaling Commission. The film is not very flattering to Japan but it also spends a decent chunk of time to make the point that most Japanese are not aware of the issues and practices being exposed.</div><div><br></div><div>The most alarming claim concerns mercury in the world's oceans, and this was really the focus of the press conference. Ric O'Barry, the protagonist of the film, asserts that dolphins in the world's oceans now contain levels of mercury higher than what was found at Minamata, that it is moving up the food chain at an alarming rate. Minamata was invoked repeatedly during the press conference. One claim in the film that is not mentioned in the Japan Times article is that much of the whale meat being sold in Japan is actually dolphin meat being passed off as the genuine article, and it's full of methyl mercury. For me, this recalled a comment by Tsuchimoto Noriaki <<a href="http://www.japanfocus.org/--Kamanaka_Tsuchimoto_Field/2614">http://www.japanfocus.org/--Kamanaka_Tsuchimoto_Field/2614</a>>: "I used to think that after witnessing Minamata disease, humankind would have learned a lesson. But if you look at where the world’s mercury levels have gone since, it’s clear that's simply wrong."</div><div><br></div><div>Being at the FCCJ press conference, my sense was that the audience response was less "mixed" than the Japan Times article suggests. Most of the comments during Q & A were from journalists, and most of them seemed to be about clarifying information or getting details. There was no discussion of the film as a film, i.e., how it was constructed, its documentary style, etc. Nobody questioned that. The comments of Dr. Endo were the only deeply critical reaction, and he was very agitated. Endo did not respond when the moderator called upon him to formulate a question, and finally somebody just grabbed the microphone away from him. Later, he calmed down and was given the final question. When asked about the science behind the film, O'Barry's response pointed back to Endo's own research. Everybody laughed and Endo fell silent.</div><div><br></div><div>As far as I heard at the press screening, there are as yet no plans to distribute the film in Japan. However, it will screen here at TIFF next month, and maybe somebody will decide to pick it up then.</div><div><br></div><div>M</div></div></body></html>