Reviews Taiwanese Reviews

Documentary Review: Ocean (2016) by Ke Chin-yuan

A harrowing damnation of humanity's exploitation of the deep blue and the marine life that call it home.

Making its UK premiere at the Taiwan UK Film Festival, “” is a film that tells us everything we already know about the commercial fishing industry but presents this information in an artful way that is undoubtedly affecting and harrowing. Directed by , a long-standing activist and environmentalist in Taiwan, the film starts off with idyllic sequences of ocean bliss but soon enough, once humans get involved, descends into nightmare, for the deep blue and the marine life that call it home…

“Ocean” is screening at Taiwan Film Festival UK

“Ocean” explores man's varying degrees of exploitation of the sea from the ground up, following local fisherman scraping seaweed from the shore, which they then strain into drink, to the brutalization of marine life at the hands of industrial fisherman and marine parks. The fishermen cheer as scores of fish, ranging from small herrings to manta rays to whale sharks, flood into their nets; through Ke's lens, their celebration comes across as vile and sadistic. The marine park announcer's ultra-cheerful commentary as staff ride the dolphins like a surfboard feels rotten and warped –  villainous propaganda that sounds like something straight from a classroom on the “Snowpiercer”; their sickeningly optimistic framing that the whale shark in their captivity “travelled for 10 hours to meet you all at the aquarium!”, as if it volunteered itself willingly, is undercut by a lingering shot of its battered tail as it slowly navigates the claustrophobia of the tank.

The most affecting component of “Ocean” is its duality. This is ultimately a film of two contrasting moods that come together to create a lasting discomfort in the viewer, which is, by necessity, the filmmaker's intent. The movie's primary focus is human's cruel treatment of the ocean, and there are plenty of scenes, in the third act especially, that are wince-inducing in that regard. Yet Ke spends a near equal amount of the documentary's runtime exploring the thriving beauty of the ocean without human interference as he does show us how our very actions are destroying this perfectly formed utopia. And the contrast is more than unsettling. The first 10-15 minutes of the film are human-less, and at first, I thought this would play out more like David Attenborough than Kooyanisqatsi. The camera calmly follows the daily lives of several species of fish, sharks, dolphins, and more, as they move in elegance and contentment through their sprawling blue world. There's no mind-blowing technical or narrative mastery at work here – don't expect Planet Earth levels of style and genre-dipped storytelling. Instead, “Ocean” offers a more simple and unbiased view of the big blue and its inhabitants.

On one hand, this makes the movie feel somewhat regular. Quite literally, with a go pro, basic Steadicam underwater equipment, and a diving license most anyone could – in theory – shoot this film without too much difficulty. On the other hand, its guerrilla and indie filmmaking sensibility gives it a simplicity and closeness that is somehow meditative. Ke doesn't aspire to grand shots or forced narratives backed by a sweeping orchestra. In fact, there's not a note of music in the film at all, and it really thrives on the removal of those artificial filters that most movies and nature documentaries use to make us invest and “feel something”; frankly, that isn't necessary here.

And nevertheless, Ke has stumbled upon a few truly wonderful shots. One particularly dazzling moment, in which the camera only lingers on for an all-too-fleeting moment, shows the sun shining through the ocean ceiling, and being eclipsed by a vast school of fish seeming to take the shape of a magnificent whale tail. Another uncomplicated but gorgeous shot observes tiny alevin as they glow and fidget inside their sacs. Ke finds life and wonder in these tiny moments that more than make up for his lack of technical sparkle, which in itself likely the cause of a limited budget anyway, rather than a reflection of his ability.

Ke's juxtaposing of romantically serene and blissful sequences of marine life with cold sequences of their exploitation by humans, reveals a clear and sad truth that most of us are aware of, but that we find too easy to ignore. The simple contrast of liberation and brutalisation is harsh and upsetting, made even more so by the apathy on the part of most of the humans engaging in and watching the barbarity – so spawn some of the movie's most arresting images; two girls gleefully posing for a selfie in front of a lifeless whale washed-up on the shore; a whale shark being lifted by a mechanical crane into the harbour, auctioned and brutally carved up into slabs, alive, while sons and daughters of the auctioneers look on with curiosity.

Ke Chin-yuan's “Ocean” is a thought-provoking and thoughtfully made documentary that, almost half a decade after its initial release, is as vital and poignantly sad as ever.

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