A fishing boat out in the North Atlantic, one of the biggest, if not the biggest, regions in the industry where the work is dangerous, physical and exhausting, often in horrendous weather and conditions. We see the darkness that surrounds the vessel, and hear the sounds of the ocean as it swells around, then make out chains as a large metal box is raised from the water onto the deck. Some of the fishermen talk to one another and give guidance, but the noise of the elements make it too difficult for the microphone to pick out and so we are left with a general din ebbing and flowing on the soundtrack. Then the nets must be drawn in to secure the catch...
Leviathan was not only named after a celebrated sea monster in The Bible, but it begins with a quote from the Book of Job, that most longsuffering of characters in the text, which is just about the only scene-setting you get in the movie. It announced itself as a documentary: what the directors Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel arranged was to have tiny cameras attached to the crew of the boat and around the area, both on the deck and in the ocean itself. For many, this lack of a real narrative was a definite turn-off, as shot after shot was held for minutes past their tolerance levels with no one to identify with and no story to hold their attention for the duration.
On the other hand, if you wanted to immerse yourself in the visual and aural sensations of going fishing on a commercial excursion, Leviathan could well be more absorbing. There was a sense here of something of a cinematic Rorschach Test in that whatever you brought to the viewing was valid, whether that be extreme boredom or a genuine fascination since the directors offered no clues other than the intention that you be impressed by the awesome power of the elements and nature and mankind's attempts to harness that. Maybe there was one other clue: at the very end there was a dedication to the lost crews of a number of boats, so this acted as a tribute of sorts as well.
In the middle we were treated, if that's the word, to shots of machinery, waves and wildlife all mixed up together in the world's most deliberately paced montage; some have described this as a horror movie, though you'd expect the most horrified audiences would either be fish or those who disdain the extensive plundering of a natural resource at a time when fish stocks were not at their healthiest thanks to excessive demand. Then again, you could regard the workers as the heroes of the piece as they toiled tirelessly to keep the produce coming, snaring huge amounts in their nets, gutting and preparing the dead creatures, and all under conditions which could have one mistake or one freak wave sending at least one of them to their certain doom.
As for the wildilfe, the fish themselves were largely presented as victims of a massacre, vast amounts of them dead or dying as they have nothing to do but await the blades of the fishermen, though there were another form of life which put in a supporting appearance, and they were the seagulls which follow the boat in the hope they can pick off the scraps which are kicked from the deck. In one part we follow a single gull as it investigates the surface of the trawler, struggling to get closer to its meal then giving up and slipping off again - he's as much a guest star as the crewmember we see later on who is trying to watch television but is plainly exhausted and cannot stop nodding off. If you had an issue with the way they went about their business then there did appear to be too much waste product for something which took so much effort to collect, not only the scraps but the surplus and even creatures that they had no use for: one image strikingly has countless uprooted starfish dropped overboard and drift into the water. There's no doubt this was an impressionistic experience, compelling as far as it went.
