BIFF Review / Blackfish ****

Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite
Where: Liberty Theatre
Showing: Wednesday, April 17 at 6:30pm

We’ve all seen elated families cheering and applauding the magnificent tricks played out by killer whales at SeaWorld, whether first hand or on television. 

Yet the seedy underbelly of the callous mistreatment of these intelligent and highly social animals at the multibillion dollar corporation rarely sees the light of day. 

That is, until now. 

Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s chilling documentary Black Fish exposes the story of Tilikum — a whale that was used to perform tricks despite a history of aggression. 

The film tells of the inhumane methods used in the training of killer whales including food deprivation and solitary confinement. What’s more, we learn of the dire consequences for their trainers, including death. These ‘accidents’ have been unfairly attributed to ‘trainer error’.

The film outlines the death of Dawn Brancheau in 2010 following an incident at the company’s Orlando park. Her colleagues describe her as one of the most safety conscious trainers they had met yet she was pulled underwater and killed by the 12,000 lb bull Tilikum.

The whale was captured as a calf in 1983 and was trained at a small-scale low budget operation called Sealand in Canada. Tilikum drowned trainer Keltie Byrne forcing the closure of the park. But SeaWorld was quick to snap him up and soon had him performing again leading to the inevitable attack on Brancheau.

One of the great strengths of Cowperthwaite’s documentary is the interviews with former trainers and captors who admit their own carelessness and/or naivety. They admit that they allowed themselves to fall for the company line that these animal perform their tricks because they enjoy it. 

They say they were told to tell the public that captive animals live longer in captivity than the wild as they have better care but that turned out to be a bold-faced lie. The interviews are backed up with solid science as animal behaviourists outline the levels of intelligence these animals possess and how that humans have learned very little over the ten- year period the film covers.