Leviathan (EOTWS)

End Of The Week Shorts #22 extract: Leviathan (2012)



Leviathan is a documentary masterpiece that, in my opinion, rests in the same realm as Man With A Movie Camera. Whilst Vertov pushed his technology to its very edge in the late 1920s, Castaing-Taylor and Paravel push the modern GoPro to its artistic limits with realism that embodies an awe-inspiring kind of truth. 
In essence, Leviathan is everything that Hutton's At Sea isn't. Instead of having you stare rather pointlessly at impersonal and distant images of a ship, Leviathan brings you almost too close to the characters and elements of a fishing vessel. The result of this is a hypnotising tableau of intricate detail and alien perspectives that is sometimes so hyper-realistic and raw that the camera's invading eye leads us into a surreal and abstract realm that breaks the fourth wall and has us marvel at the spectacle of this concept and technology barefaced. 
One of the most ethereal films I've ever had the luck to fall into, Leviathan, if it manages to resonate with your interests, is undeniably one of the greatest movies ever constructed.

Popular Posts