SHARKumentary!
So James and I saw Sharkwater last night, and it was not bad. I mean, I learned a fair bit and felt monumentally guilty about my ecological footprint at the end, so I guess it achieved its purpose. But I can't help thinking that environmentalists, especially environmentalists who make movies, would benefit from diluting their sincerity and earnestness with a little irony or humour or even cynicism. As a not-necessarily-representative member of Generation Y, or whatever we are called, I would like to see my ironic po-mo hipster lifestyle reflected back to me by the films I watch. By the end of this movie, I thought if I heard the words "I had to save the sharks" one more time, I would literally get out my iPod. You know what really livens up a documentary? Environmentalists telling dirty jokes, or updating their MySpace pages, or humming the theme from JAWS. Give me SOMETHING.
By far the most interesting part of this movie, to me, was when a ship from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society blasted an illegal Costa Rican fishing boat with water cannons and then rammed into them. Spanish swearing! Adventure at sea! And that, profound activist statement aside, is funny. Michael Moore already knows this secret.
We are all implicated:
Jocelyn: Do you know what bugs me even more than DRM-crippled music downloads?
James: What?
Jocelyn: In the time we've been talking about digital rights management, FIFTEEN MORE SHARKS HAVE BEEN KILLED FOR THEIR FINS.
James: STOP KILLING SHARKS, JOCELYN!
Earlier post in the Nature Documentaries Saga: For best results, hum "The circle of life" from The Lion King as you watch.
