Blackfish - 2014

Yesterday, I watched the documentary Blackfish. It is an amazing and fascinating story of orca whales in captivity. It talks about why so many people are injured by orcas in captivity but none in the wild. The documentary starts by introducing some former animal trainers who have worked with sea lions, dolphins and most importantly, orcas. Their stories, and others, are amusing with some but terrifying with others. In one story, we hear them talk about a seaworld trainer with promising talent and an almost unbelievable connection between the animals and herself who sadly lost her life after she was dragged under the water by one of these 20,000 pound creatures. Her death, and the injuries of many others were used as evidence to prove that in captivity, they can be very dangerous to people because of stress and other factors including their very emotional behaviour. One thing that I think made this documentary good was the way that it brought out so much emotion from the stories not only from the peoples side, but from that of the orcas too. When they are caught to go to captivity, only the babies are taken because they cost less to move about. This may seem like a good idea but it can leave the parents of the whale seriously unhappy for the rest of their lives as they stay with their parents for life. In one scene, we see this happening and a mother orca is swimming alongside the boat crying her calls to get her baby back, but she can't do anything to stop it.

Overall, this documentary was breath taking, emotional and fascinating from start to finish, it has become one of my favourite documentaries and I very highly recommend it to any animal lover or someone studying film.