Educational Media Reviews Online

Leviathan is a visual immersion into the world of commercial fishing: hand-held, helmet-mounted, and underwater cameras capture the movements of men, machines, fish, birds, and other sea life on a trawler off the coast of Massachusetts. The film is completely dialogue-free, there is only the barest suggestion of a narrative arc, and most of the footage is taken at night, all of which help create an otherworldly atmosphere.

Within this otherworldly atmosphere real fishermen are doing backbreaking labor. Human faces are seen so seldom that when they appear, their expressions speak volumes. Perhaps the most evocative moment takes place in an entirely interior environment: a fisherman dozes off over coffee in the ship's kitchen while a fishing documentary plays on an unseen television.

The documentary is not an expose, nor is it a romanticized portrait of modern fishing; in an interview with the Documentary Channel, director Lucien Castaing-Taylor says his film is simply a “representation of what it was like to be on a boat.” In less sure hands, such an artistic, even impressionistic, approach could have obscured the filmmaker’s intentions. Instead it highlights how effective film can be when a filmmaker wants to share an experience with an audience.

Academic libraries supporting film studies programs should consider Leviathan a core title, and public libraries serving coastal communities should seriously consider adding the film to their collections. Instructors in environmental studies, human ecology, and human-animal studies may also find Leviathan useful in starting classroom discussion.

Awards

• Winner, Douglas Edwards Award, Los Angeles Film Critics Circle
• Winner, Vienna Film Festival
• Winner, Seville Film Festival
• Winner, Belfort Film Festival
• Winner, CPS:DOX Film Festival