Chris Marker's usual mix of "borrowed" pieces of different film textures (film, video, animation, photographs, paintings) serves as a poetic, passionate and very sound warning against the widespread, business-like, matter-of-fact killing of whales around the world. If today its message may sound obvious to most of us -- almost everybody is aware of the danger of whale extinction, though of course there are still killings out there -- it can still be enlightening as to the appalling methods of whale-hunting worldwide through the ages, as well as the very special place that this big cetacean has occupied in human mythology, history, economics and art, the "challenge" of little men killing the biggest animals on the planet, and making the mo$t of it.
The quality of the images vary tremendously, and for sure there are scenes that will make you cringe with horror (not unlike Geroges Franju's 1949 one-day-in-a-slaughterhouse "Le Sang des Bêtes"). Marker's incomparable talent for weaving his commentary with creative insight, historical research, wit, irony and common sense elevates this short film above the routine ecological documentary.
The quality of the images vary tremendously, and for sure there are scenes that will make you cringe with horror (not unlike Geroges Franju's 1949 one-day-in-a-slaughterhouse "Le Sang des Bêtes"). Marker's incomparable talent for weaving his commentary with creative insight, historical research, wit, irony and common sense elevates this short film above the routine ecological documentary.