Review of Leviathan (2013) by Panta O — 28 Oct 2013

A documentary film directed by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel of the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard University. It is an experimental work about the North American fishing industry... and it should stay that - experiment!

Peter Howell of the Toronto Star said the film "plunges us into the sights and sounds of this visceral business", using "tiny waterproof cameras that could be clipped or rested upon people, fish or objects . . . to capture the film's raw images and natural sounds. Edited together into a non-linear and virtually wordless whole, it creates a briny immersive effect that is almost hallucinatory." My opinion is that Peter Howell is a guy who should go out there and see the world! All I could see from this documentary is 90% of nothing except darkness! There were few scenes worth seeing but this raw look of the workers and on the ocean brought nothing but death - after watching it I had not even a wish to be a part of THAT world! No clarity what is happening and for some (probably on cocaine) this "density of aural and visual stimuli overwhelms-and liberates." It must be a strong Colombian batch to say that!

If you want to waste almost an hour and a half on a wanking self-conscious tone poem concocted from oblique camera angles, shots held so long that you could go and make sandwich and come back without losing anything from the non-existing story, please watch this one... I am interested in what kind of cursing you used after that! Nothing else...:-(.