Directed by: Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel.
Written by: Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel.
The
reason why some critics will call Leviathan the best film of the year is the
same reason why most audience members will not want to sit through the film – it’s
not quite like anything I’ve ever seen before – and that’s both the films
strength and its weakness. The film has come out of something called the
“Sensory Ethnography Lab” at Harvard, and is co-directed by professor Lucien
Castaing-Taylor, (who co-directed Sweetgrass, about sheep herding a few years
back) along with Verena Paravel. The film is a documentary and an ethnographic
film – yet, not really either one of those. It was shot aboard a fishing ship
based in New Bedford, Massachusetts – but if you to see a film about fishing, its
challenges, consequences or methodology, than really this isn’t the film for
you. The film really doesn’t offer anything we traditionally think of when we
watch a movie. The film immerses us in the sights and sounds on board the boat
(and sometimes, overboard) but provides us with no context for anything. You
simply sit back and let the film wash over you – or you fight it, and then
you’re in for a very long 90 minutes. Unlike perhaps any other film this year,
Leviathan offers images that you have never seen before, will probably not see
again. The problem is these moments of brilliance often come right alongside
some tedious moments. This is a brilliant half hour Avant garde film, stretched
to 90 minutes. While I know why some have loved it – and will declare it a
masterpiece (watch it to rank very high on year-end critics surveys) – I also
know why when the film was released earlier this year, it grossed only $72K.
This is a film that is made with little to no thought of the audience – which
is refreshing and frustrating in equal degrees.
I
really do not know what to say about the film – so I’ll describe the three ways
in which is was shot. The first is a traditional documentary format – with the
filmmakers with handheld cameras simply filming the men as they go about their
work. Fair warning to people with sensitive stomachs – if you don’t think you
can take extended scenes of fish being disemboweled, well then this isn’t the
film for you. The second way the film is shot is with cameras mounted to the
workers helmets, to capture their POV as they go about their work. The third,
and most interesting way the film was shot, was with cameras that were
literally tied to the giant fishing nets, and thrown out to sea. It is this way
that the film produces the images you have likely never seen before – the
roiling, rough see, haunting images shot of seagulls from underwater that will
stay with me for the rest of my life. I haven’t seen this type of thing before
– and likely won’t again. Who else would shoot this way?
You
won’t really get an idea of what life on a fishing boat like this is like from
Leviathan. The film is often shot in disorienting close-up, so it’s hard if not
impossible to tell just exactly what you’re looking at. The voices of them men
are drown out by the natural sounds of the ocean around them, and the unnatural
sound of the machinery churning. One, very odd and very long, sequence simply
sits back and watches the captain as he watches an episode of Deadliest Catch
on TV – the show giving way to commercials. What the point of this scene is, I
have no idea.
And
that’s about all I can say about Leviathan. It is a film like nothing you have
seen before – even the aforementioned Sweetgrass had a more traditional feel to
it than this one. This one is all about its images – that it invites you to get
lost in, and think of – well, whatever those images call to mind. It is
deliberately ambiguous – it doesn’t argue for or against anything. Most people
will have interest in the film whatsoever – I understand that. Some will
proclaim it a masterpiece – I understand that as well. For me, I’m right in the
middle. I admired the film, without ever really loving it. Perhaps had I seen
it in a theater, where it’s easier to get lost in it, rather than at home, I
would have liked it more than I did. A good test of whether the film is for you
is when I mentioned “Sensory Ethnography Lab” above, did it peak your interest,
or make you scratch your head in confusion. But I think if you made it this far
in the review, you already know if the film is for you or not.
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