Leviathan

An interestingly filmed documentary that suggests a sensory experience rather than just capturing the conventionally "beautiful" images of the life in the sea. If you wish to watch a film that has a conventional narration do not watch this. The camera seeks to document fish, birds, nets, man, the sea etc with the same curiosity and the same intensity, everything being of the same importance. The camera moves a lot in this process and sometimes makes you feel dizzy but at the same time this way of documenting captures the essence of this world where everything moves and swirls constantly. Throughout the film there is an insistent mixing and blurring between the sea and the sky, up and down. The scenes showing the masses of fish tangled in the nets suggest a comment on man's voracity. Beautifully recorded sound. A bit bumpy but an interesting and genuine experience.

Blood, guts, flesh, fishes, carcasses, knifes, butchery, filth, water, seagulls, workers, cigarettes, days, nights, alienation, Gopro cameras. This is sensory anthropology at its best. The viewer is trapped into this immersive world and forced to experience life and working hours through the fishermen's eyes. A fascinating, nauseous and vertiginous documentary film about industrial fishing. Masterpiece.

'LEVIATHAN': Three Stars (Out of Five)

Another experimental film taking the 'less is more' approach to art and filmmaking. There's no storyline, no character development and no characters for that matter. The movie 'LEVIATHAN' (not to be confused with the 1989 monster flick, of the same name, starring Peter Weller) is a collection of long random shots aboard a fishing ship. It was directed and written (if you can call it writing) by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel. I found it to be visually interesting but also extremely boring.

The movie is just a collection of random shots (that go on for way too long) about a fishing vessel. It's supposed to be some kind of a commentary on the fishing industry I think. There's a lot of shots of people doing various jobs, with almost no dialogue (and what dialogue there is is not important). It was filmed with waterproof cameras that are clipped to all sorts of people, animals (possibly) and things.

The film received rave reviews and I don't understand why. I think it actually would have been a lot better cut into a bunch of 5 to 10 minute YouTube videos. As a nearly 90 minute movie it's way too long and uninteresting. The shots look cool though and I guess it's kind of an informative look at the fishing industry and life at sea. It reminds me of another recent critically acclaimed but very boring film (with no dialogue) called 'ALL IS LOST'. In my opinion there's not much to it.

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First of all, i can understand why some folks don't like this movie. It is unconventional, experimental and honest. So not everybody's cup of tea. The first five minutes i was also in a mood of "nahh what is that?" but then i kept watching and let myself go. The scenes are very long so they kinda let you immerse into what is happening after a while. What you see is not nice. But somehow i got hooked. It was almost kinda like meditation. Beautiful and disturbing at the same time. Just images and sound that together form something whole after a while. After i watched it, i didn't knew if i liked it or not. But days later i am still thinking about it, so i decided to like it. It is sort of Art and Reality melted together. An audiovisual experience that drags you down in the world of the sea, the fisherman, the boat, humankind, the world we live in. And it does that without telling you anything you didn't know already, because it doesn't have to.

If you are up for a new experience that will make you think about it for a while, go see the movie!

If you are expecting a neat little movie with a clear plot, that leaves you with a sense of having experienced something you can summarize easily ... you'll be sorely disappointed. This is a horror film in many senses, presented as poetry and intellectually obscure.

Its title, Leviathan, is a reference to the biblical passage that depicts man's encounter with a sea monster. Here, the monster is man, ripping life from the sea and destroying it in the harshest of ways, butchering sea creatures in such a matter-of-fact, emotionally detached way as to bring you to tears. But the way it is filmed creates a detachment of its own, sort of stifling the viewers' emotions so we can watch without turning away.

It is on its surface a commentary on the commercial fishing industry ... how we have reduced mass slaughter to an assembly-line process ... much like what the Nazis did to the Jews. When man turns against man, we are horrified. When man turns against nature ... it's just business as usual.

If there is a message to the film it's that we are the monsters on this planet.