Whaledreamers charts Kendersley’s personal odyssey to end the practice of whaling. To make his point, he draws on the deep spiritual connections that exist between ancient tribes and the endangered animals, focussing on the Mirning people of the Nullarbor, whose efforts to reconnect with the spirit animals of their dispossessed sacred land leads the film’s narrative.
Kendersley’s passion is infectious. He is clearly a committed, excitable, and enthusiastic advocate for harmony and compassion, who struggles against complacency in the face of world crises and looming environmental catastrophe.
The problem is, none of this translates into a compelling film. The narrative struggles to maintain momentum and gets lost amid repetitious stock footage and gimmicky post production.
It is a dilemma that all advocacy filmmakers face: how to condense a complicated social/political/environmental message into a concise and palatable essay that is capable of effecting change. When this is done well, the results speak for themselves. With just Al Gore and a Powerpoint presentation, director David Guggenheim made a film that put climate change at the forefront of the political agenda. Similarly, Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock are household names thanks to their effective methods of creating a lasting impression.
For his part, Kendersley has made a 'message movie’ that stumbles under the weight of its message. An anti-whaling film degenerates into an all-encompassing rant about \'man\'s inhamanity to man\', complete with a clumsy September 11 montage.
It seems as though Kendersley also struggled under the weight of the footage collected during the film’s on/off decade of production"¦ A better director with a more economical approach to storytelling would have cut through the repetition and hyperbole to create the film Whaledreamers fancies itself to be.
It’s a terrible shame because the makings of a good film are all there: There’s an historic meeting of international indigenous elders; there’s the personal story of a song man from a dispossessed tribe striving to find a renewed sense of purpose. Above all, there\'s the potential for an incredible study on the hurdles that need to be overcome in order to eradicate the horrendous practice of whaling. But limited screen time is devoted to what is arguably the film’s most interesting source of tension: the emerging dissent within indigenous tribes who slaughter whales as a rite of passage. Winning the emotional argument between custom and conscience is surely just as difficult as the diplomatic efforts to convince Japan to drop the dubious 'we’re only collecting tissue samples’ defence. But you won\'t find any serious debate in Whaledreamers and it\'s wholly unsatisfying. It’s as if Kendersley felt that any screen time given over to whaling advocates from tribal culture would weaken his central argument that the practice is wrong. In fact, the opposite would likely be the case, and it would have illustrated the extent of the struggle far better than the one-sided narrative does.
Whaledreamers misses its mark entirely and its message of hope is unlikely to travel far outside the circle of those already committed to the cause. Worse, it risks backfiring entirely by alienating those willing to listen to its message but put off by its heavy-handed methods.
Rating: 1.5/5
