| www.youtube.com/qtv "The Cove" is part action/adventure...and part horror film. Its story begins with Ric O'Barry...the man who famously captured and trained the dolphins used in the Flipper TV show of the early 1960s. That series precipitated what's become a worldwide fascination with this intelligent, communicative and smiling mammal. Soon after, dolphins were jumping through hoops at theme parks like SeaWorld and Marineland...and becoming a tourist draw. Today, dolphins can can sell up to $150 000 each....which brings us back to the film, "The Cove." The title refers to a location in Japan, which has emerged as the site of the world's largest dolphin slaughter. Choice dolphins are picked out to sell internationally, and the rest are killed for their meat. Ric O'Barry joins forces with a team of diving, film and gadget experts to infiltrate the heavily fortified cove in Taiji, Japan. His mission was to infiltrate the heavily guarded secret location to covertly film the horrors that lie below sea level...and expose the existence of the slaughter to the entire world. And if that doesn't sound very easy, it isn't. The cove itself is almost impenetrable -- security are at the gate 24/7, with guard dogs, barbed wire, and an entire town willing to do almost anything to keep the cove a secret. Louie Psihoyos is the driving force behind this project and this film. He's the director of "The Cove" and before that, an award-winning photographer for National Geographic. |
