An amphibious ethnographer's eye takes a fascinating look at the harvest from the sea
Leviathan pairs the direct cinema ethnographics of Verena Paravel (Foreign Parts) with the more pared-down aesthetics of Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Sweetgrass) to create a truly unique approach to documentary, delivering an astonishing perspective on deep sea fishing in the North Atlantic. What strikes you at once is what you might call the naiveté of the camera's eye. It's not random, it's intelligent, and seems to pay attention and figure things out, but it's as if the operator doesn't start out knowing what's important, it's as if the camera is a subjectivity thrown into the situation of the fishing ship -- to begin with in the nearly total darkness of the early hours -- and starts out just looking, intrigued by what it sees and wanting to capture it all, but only one piece at a time.
You'd think it would be boring. I was...
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