8 Documentaries Which Will Change The Way You See The World

3. The Cove

Academy Award winning documentary The Cove takes a darker turn in its examination of man's relationship with animals, in this case the annual slaughter of dolphins carried out in Japan. Most Westerners feel a close affinity towards dolphins, viewing them as perhaps the closest animals to ourselves in the animal kingdom (certainly the closest ocean-faring creatures we know of). The idea of killing them for their meat is to many people abhorrent, and the call to end the hunting of dolphins is one many will share, especially after watching The Cove, in which hidden cameras capture the brutality of the hunt, with waters running deep red with the blood of dolphins. Told from the perspective of conservationist Ric O'Barry, who in the 1960s worked with dolphins on the hit television show Flipper, The Cove is a fine example of guerilla documentary making, with the crew often coming under fire from both the local communities and the Japanese authorities, who accused them of fabricating evidence as well as stirring up aggression with the fishermen to enhance the dramatic effect. Nevertheless, it is a suspenseful expose which sadly did nothing to stop the annual slaughters, highlighting the incompatibility between Western ethical values and Eastern traditions. That said, as we are about to see, ethics and food consumption in the West is as controversial a topic as that explored in The Cove.