DEFEND CONSERVE PROTECT
****
Director: Stephen Amis
Screenwriter: Stephen Amis, Gene Geoffrey, Alana Tompson
Principal cast:
Paul Watson
Dan Aykroyd (narrator)
Peter Hammarstedt
Siddharth Chakravarty
Luis Manuel De Pinho
Jean Yves Terlain
Country: Australia/Canada/UK
Classification: PG
Runtime: 76 mins.
Australian release date: Thursday 25 July 2019
Previewed at: Dendy Newtown Cinemas, Sydney, on Wednesday 10 July.
Defend Conserve Protect describes the intentions of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in patrolling the world’s oceans and now is also the title of a new documentary examining the group’s actions against Japanese whaling vessels in the Southern Ocean in 2012. That year, four Sea Shepherd ships, the MY Sam Simon, the MY Bob Barker, the MY Steve Irwin and the MV Brigitte Bardot, took on the might of the Japanese whaling fleet and almost paid the ultimate price. In one scene, before departing for the waters of the Antarctic, the crew are asked “Are you willing to die for the whales?” and, of course, the dedicated volunteers all answer in the affirmative. One suspects, though, that few really think it will come to that but on this mission it very nearly did.
Australian director Stephen Amis spent four years going through thousands of hours of footage recorded during the whaling season (there were 12 cameras on board the vessels and they were at sea for 70 days), plus a mass of archival material and newly recorded interviews, hence the delay in getting this doco to our screens. In the meantime he made the dramatic feature, The BBQ, released last year, and it must be said that, based on that film and Defend Conserve Protect, he’s a better documentarian than drama director. There’s real tension here. At the outset, Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson provides an introduction in which he succinctly states, “The Earth is like a giant spaceship travelling around the galaxy, and we humans are passengers just having a good time of it. The trouble is we’re killing the crew - the flora and fauna whose job it is to maintain the ship that keeps us alive.” Amis, who also co-edited with Alana Tompson, then begins to construct the story of the 2012 anti-whaling campaign, building inexorably to a violent, near-tragic battle that wedged the Bob Barker between the Japanese mother-ship, the MV Nisshin Maru, and one of her whalers, a clash of David versus Goliath proportions. Along the journey to this destination, we learn some very interesting facts about whales and the motivation of the Japanese in maintaining their whaling ‘research’ in the waters of the Antarctic. Did you know, for example, that a blue whale excretes about three tonnes of waste a day, and that this material provides vital nutrients to microscopic marine life? Or that these majestic behemoths act like ocean pumps by virtue of their sounding and surfacing motion, thus helping to regulate water temperature?
Defend Conserve Protect is an eye-opening, exciting documentary that shines a spotlight on one aspect of the work of an important environmental organisation, and the brave actions of the 120 crew members from 27 different countries who were involved in the 2012 whaling season (showing just how global the group is). The one facet of the film that isn’t quite so successful is the script provided for Dan Aykroyd’s ‘voice of the whales’ narration; it’s overblown and flowery and, quite frankly, the information it provides could have been better supplied elsewhere in the screenplay. These segments only crop up intermittently, however, so they don’t mar the structure too much. The film is in limited release but viewers who seek it out will be well rewarded - it’s good to learn a bit more about Sea Shepherd and to hear that it is estimated they have saved some 6,000 whales over the course of 12 campaigns. Now that’s defending, conserving and protecting on a massive scale.
Screenwriter: Stephen Amis, Gene Geoffrey, Alana Tompson
Principal cast:
Paul Watson
Dan Aykroyd (narrator)
Peter Hammarstedt
Siddharth Chakravarty
Luis Manuel De Pinho
Jean Yves Terlain
Country: Australia/Canada/UK
Classification: PG
Runtime: 76 mins.
Australian release date: Thursday 25 July 2019
Previewed at: Dendy Newtown Cinemas, Sydney, on Wednesday 10 July.
Defend Conserve Protect describes the intentions of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in patrolling the world’s oceans and now is also the title of a new documentary examining the group’s actions against Japanese whaling vessels in the Southern Ocean in 2012. That year, four Sea Shepherd ships, the MY Sam Simon, the MY Bob Barker, the MY Steve Irwin and the MV Brigitte Bardot, took on the might of the Japanese whaling fleet and almost paid the ultimate price. In one scene, before departing for the waters of the Antarctic, the crew are asked “Are you willing to die for the whales?” and, of course, the dedicated volunteers all answer in the affirmative. One suspects, though, that few really think it will come to that but on this mission it very nearly did.
Australian director Stephen Amis spent four years going through thousands of hours of footage recorded during the whaling season (there were 12 cameras on board the vessels and they were at sea for 70 days), plus a mass of archival material and newly recorded interviews, hence the delay in getting this doco to our screens. In the meantime he made the dramatic feature, The BBQ, released last year, and it must be said that, based on that film and Defend Conserve Protect, he’s a better documentarian than drama director. There’s real tension here. At the outset, Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson provides an introduction in which he succinctly states, “The Earth is like a giant spaceship travelling around the galaxy, and we humans are passengers just having a good time of it. The trouble is we’re killing the crew - the flora and fauna whose job it is to maintain the ship that keeps us alive.” Amis, who also co-edited with Alana Tompson, then begins to construct the story of the 2012 anti-whaling campaign, building inexorably to a violent, near-tragic battle that wedged the Bob Barker between the Japanese mother-ship, the MV Nisshin Maru, and one of her whalers, a clash of David versus Goliath proportions. Along the journey to this destination, we learn some very interesting facts about whales and the motivation of the Japanese in maintaining their whaling ‘research’ in the waters of the Antarctic. Did you know, for example, that a blue whale excretes about three tonnes of waste a day, and that this material provides vital nutrients to microscopic marine life? Or that these majestic behemoths act like ocean pumps by virtue of their sounding and surfacing motion, thus helping to regulate water temperature?
Defend Conserve Protect is an eye-opening, exciting documentary that shines a spotlight on one aspect of the work of an important environmental organisation, and the brave actions of the 120 crew members from 27 different countries who were involved in the 2012 whaling season (showing just how global the group is). The one facet of the film that isn’t quite so successful is the script provided for Dan Aykroyd’s ‘voice of the whales’ narration; it’s overblown and flowery and, quite frankly, the information it provides could have been better supplied elsewhere in the screenplay. These segments only crop up intermittently, however, so they don’t mar the structure too much. The film is in limited release but viewers who seek it out will be well rewarded - it’s good to learn a bit more about Sea Shepherd and to hear that it is estimated they have saved some 6,000 whales over the course of 12 campaigns. Now that’s defending, conserving and protecting on a massive scale.