"Leviathan" (2013)

It might be a very bad pun to say this, but Leviathan throws you into the deep end of the water and hopes you can swim. Technically it’s a documentary film, but directors Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel free up the film of all documentary, and even narrative, conventions. There’s no talking heads, no interviews and no voiceovers to guide us. It often plays more like a piece of abstract or avant-garde art than a documentary, and there’s certainly an argument to be made that it is abstract art. The film is about life on an offshore fishing vessel, much like we might think of from an episode of Deadliest Catch (which the film even references at one point in a deeply self-aware and bitterly ironic moment), but it doesn’t so much tell us how they survive but shows us. The camera is allowed to simply run and capture startling, inexplicable moments -- birds flying and guts tossed overboard become more strangely mesmerizing than is possibly imaginable. The camera is rigged to the side of the boat and allowed to capture whatever it can during this time. The result is imagery that’s riveting and powerful, but it's hard to really to put into words the startling effect. It’s an overwhelmingly experiential film, where you learn things through letting the film wash over you. But it’s not all completely surreal; much of the more dazzling imagery is contrasted with long stretches of mundane downtime or excruciatingly difficult and tedious work. Eventually this admittedly gets slightly repetitive, as it feels as though the film is making the same few points over and over. Freed from narrative constraints the film takes some daring, thrilling risks to get us to understand what life for these seamen entails, but the lack of conventions also causes the film to feel the need to drive home points more than is really necessary.

Grade: A-