July 10, 2012

Behold Leviathan

by Allen Irwin


A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that.
- Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Leviathan, the upcoming film from Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Sweetgrass) and Véréna Paravel, explores modern-day commercial fishing through a cosmic, yet intimate and immersive (not to mention submersive) lens. After viewing the trailer (above), I appropriately felt like a sailor perched high atop the mast-head of a ship, glimpsing the spout of a great whale on the horizon. Operating like a short film or a proof of concept piece, the trailer takes us on a short four minute journey through the eyes of the fishing bait to a final reveal of the ship itself, relentlessly pounding its way through the ocean.