>>REVIEW
SHARKWATER
DIRECTED BY Rob Stewart
Opens Friday, March 23
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Avian bird flu as 21st century plague, unstoppable, swarming killer bees and berserk rampaging elephants – all of these are constructs of media hysteria, and as Canadian filmmaker Rob Stewart attempts to show us, so are ruthless man-eating sharks. Fabled as the terrors of the sea, Stewart attempts to debunk this myth in his stunningly shot debut documentary.
Stewart, a surfer dude underwater photographer and biologist, takes audiences on his quest to show that not only are sharks not the menace we think they are but they are actually essential to human survival as keepers of the ocean’s pecking order. Stewart’s impassioned filmmaking, along with incredible underwater footage, makes this yet another compelling documentary about how humans are totally screwing up every corner of our planet. Lacking is the political clout and experience of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, but it nevertheless packs a healthy dose of environmental conscience.
Where this film sets itself apart from the legions of nature docs is in its politics. When Stewart agrees to join renegade activist Paul Watson and his Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the film becomes more than just a love letter to their underwater friends. The project takes Stewart and Watson overseas, where they are invited by the Costa Rican government to help bully line fisherman who are illegally capturing sharks for their much-prized fins. What Stewart and Watson ultimately uncover is an enormous and prolific illegal fin trade in the waters off Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands. Their fins, highly prized in Asia for their supposed healing qualities and as symbols of wealth, fisherman have nearly wiped out the shark by killing almost 100 million of them a year.
What ensues is a series of life or death encounters, attempted murder charges, hospitalization and undercover espionage. Not only is Stewart’s hi-definition footage breathtaking, his storytelling skills are also evident. Stewart and Watson are compelling characters and manage to instil an incredible sense of impassioned heart into a film that also includes a lot of cool underwater shark footage. This is another zealous film attempting to shock us earth dwellers into finally doing something to protect our planet and fight against the frivolous damage we are doing to it. In this case, all for a bowl of soup. The extinction of sharks means anarchy in the underwater world, a world that produces 80 per cent of the earth’s oxygen. Sharks are crucial to human survival and without them, humans will die, and that is no media scare tactic. |
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