Leviathan – A visually striking, avant-garde approach to an anthropological study of man’s toll on nature in industrial fishing.
I first heard of Leviathan when I read an article about it that James Franco wrote for Vice Magazine. “If anything,” Franco explains, “this movie exemplifies the art of poetry without words, the art of poetry through images, the art of taking real life and framing it and juxtaposing it in such a way that it becomes greater than fiction.” I was instantly sold.
The film is described as a documentary but there really is no genre that it fits. While it does technically document industrial fishing, there is no narrative, no plot, no script and almost no words. Instead what you get is a beautiful compilation of images that seem like they were filmed with GoPro cameras placed all over. They film from the fishermen’s heads, various places on deck, even underwater alongside the boat. I was so engrossed by these images that the film’s lack of normal documentary aspects didn’t even bother me. If anything, this film is a stark but welcome testament to the power of the visual medium; a warm reminder of film’s ability to have a visceral effect on the viewer. Instead of dozing off to another Michael Bay special-effects Hollywood blockbuster, I actually started to feel seasick.
Another beautiful aspect of this film is that it wasn’t just another boring, dramatized episode of Deadliest Catch. The directors, who happen to both be anthropologists, actually had something to say. It’s no coincidence that the film bears the same title as Thomas Hobbes’ book on philosophy and human nature. The film, too, is a commentary on human nature; particularly man’s careless, destructive desire to attain what he wants. Two scenes in particular stood out to me for this reason. The first is after a scene where the fishermen reel in a massive net that is literally bursting at the seams with fish. After they unload the net, we are shown a lengthy scene in which the camera sits on-deck, partially immersed in water. Dead-center is the bloody head of a fish, guts floating in and out as the boat rocks back and forth on the sea. It is both disgusting and beautiful at the same time and you can’t help but feel something, anything, knowing that man willingly slaughters this way every day.
In another scene a net reels in a huge load of mixed contents. Fishermen carelessly toss around crabs, starfish and other unwanted things as they pick out what I assume are scallops. As if this visual wasn’t saying enough, the camera then fixes on an empty beer can that was reeled in too. This seemed to make the statement that man removes what belongs in the sea and replaces it with that which doesn’t. This idea is reinforced when the next shot is on the side of the boat, showing the fishermen dump back everything they don’t need: tons and tons of starfish, fish guts and bodies of stingrays whose wings they just cut off. And to make you feel even sicker, the camera never stops moving up and down, up and down from the endless waves of the ocean.
All in all Leviathan was a beautiful film. While it doesn’t boast the best message about the fishing industry, it certainly proves the just like the fishermen, the film industry will always be back for more.