By Glenn Dunks
Sally Aitken’s Playing with Sharks and Eli Roth’s Fin are two very different documentaries but share common ground. Not just in that they are both about sharks, but because they each want to use their platforms to advocate for the preservation of the ocean’s perfect predators. Neither film reaches the heights of other better, similarly themed films (in recent years, I stump heavily for Karina Holden’s Blue), but it’s something of a sad indictment that their very existence is important as the environmental crises happening in our oceans appear so far from being solved.
Aitken’s film chooses to focus its lens on Valerie Taylor, a famed Australian diver whose role in some prominent Hollywood productions (you may know of one called Jaws, but also Blue Water, White Death in 1967) led to being a conservationist. Fin on the other hand is a most unexpected non-fiction diversion for Roth; a film more akin to The Cove than the gory horror features that he is better known for.
Of the two, Playing with Sharks makes the bigger impact in terms of both storytelling and filmmaking craft. Aitken struck gold with Valerie Taylor, whose life and career is one that should interest both environmentalists as well as film-lovers. Her tales of sexism within the industry as she cut through the waters in her brightly-colored swimsuits make for a telling introduction as she grew to become one of the most respected in her profession. Aitken and editor Adrian Rostirolla incorporate archival news footage, home movies, film clips and newly filmed testimonials and action footage into a sleek portrait of this pioneer.
Its strongest passages begin by charting the evolution of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, as Taylor underestimated the impact the film would have on the public’s appetite for eco-destruction and her regret at the sheer number of shark deaths that came from it. Her stories from these times when the ocean wasn’t a mass environment grave are tinged with regret and sadness, but ultimately give way to an even greater passion for protecting these greatly misunderstood animals. Taylor, who is 85 yet remains sharp as a tack, is an entertaining subject upon whom to hang a film such as Playing with Sharks. Yes, it wouldn’t exist without her in the first place, but the documentary illuminates on the many ways she has contributed to preservation, particularly in the shadow of Jaws.
While it may not rock the boat (so to speak) in terms of doc filmmaking, it is nonetheless a step above most of the National Geographic exclusive titles that definitely have the look and feel of television. This film, produced in Australia (there’s even a Chris Hemsworth cameo), is vividly shot and shows that allowing fascinating women such as Taylor speak to the issues at heart is more valuable than bells and whistles.
Taking a far different tact is Roth’s Fin in which Roth posits himself as the subject of his own movie. A noted shark lover, Roth trades backwoods slasher frights for the shark trade that upwards of 100 million sharks killed each year for their fin, liver, meat and cartilage. All have supposed health benefits, but much of this has been refuted and, especially so in the case of shark fin soup, is rooted solely in class structures that boomed from China’s economic reforms. Roth visits trawlers, speaks to environmental activists and (in one of the film’s more uncomfortable passages) goes store-to-store in a Hong Kong black market.
Roth’s shocked face becomes a recurring image in Fin. Deservedly, too, as much of what the film shows us is indeed shocking and gruesome in a way that his fictionalized horror films are not. He has also been gifted some great video footage, including in one extraordinary sequence the intentional sinking of a very large boat in order to hide all evidence of illegal fishing.
The issue that Fin isn’t that Roth is not a committed host. He is, and he makes a valiant case for ending the barbaric practices that are destroying the ecology of the ocean in irreparable ways. Rather, the problem that Roth’s film has is that it isn’t anything more than that. Even in Playing with Sharks, the story of eco-activism is wrapped around its wonderful subject. Here, Roth goes over many of the same things that we have heard and seen in other similar documentaries while ignoring others. For example, at one point we are told that Spain is the second worst country for shark product exports (Mexico, Argentina, USA, Brazil and Nigeria are other non-Asian countries in that alarming top ten) and yet his camera remains all but entirely focused on China and the fishing villages of Asia.
Fin as well as Playing with Sharks show some remarkable images and each work well as educational tools to get more people understanding the realities of the catastrophe happening in our oceans. One just snared my attention in a subtler and more emotional character-based ways (yes, even the sharks themselves).
Release: Playing with Sharks is on Disney+ and Fin is on Discovery+.
Oscar chances: The win for My Octopus Teacher will probably lead some to believe these two films (or others like it) have stronger chances than I suspect they do. Octopus was a bit of a strange phenomenon and I doubt it’ll be replicated. Certainly not this quickly.