LEVIATHAN (C+) - This is a near-wordless documentary providing a harrowing bird's-eye view (at times literally) of a fishing boat in the North Atlantic. It is a slog and a chore to get through, because often the viewer gets tossed into the maelstrom and bombarded with repetitive images. There is no narration and only scattered, passing, meaningless snatches of dialogue.
We see the drudgery of hoisting nets, emptying nets, chopping up fish. We get a few unique POV shots -- from way atop the mast, from underwater, from the back of the boat viewing seagulls. The silence and intensity, though, make it difficult to get a handle on the point being made by filmmakers Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel. The movie sports a kinship with "Into Great Silence," the mute though much more ponderous and drawn-out study of monks in the Swiss Alps.
At times the dimly lit scenes boast an avant-garde beauty, but too often, the images are dizzying and disorienting, to no great effect. It's as if someone strapped Frederick Wiseman to the hull of the boat and shouted at him to "just keep shooting."
I never connected with it. I dozed on and off during the first half hour. I woke up not worried that I might have missed something important.
At times, the camera sits for excruciatingly long stretches, numbly observing the various activities. We watch one fisherman take a shower. Ho-hum. We actually get one continuous shot, of several minutes duration, of one fisherman watching television -- and dozing off. That scene is a perfect distillation of "Leviathan" and my reaction to it.
* - From Patsy in "Absolutely Fabulous," having this exchange after arriving home post-dawn from a night of carousing:
Patsy: What time is it?
Eddy: 7:30 [a.m.]
Patsy: What? in the... 7:30, you say? That means nothing to me.
Eddy: Go back to bed, darling.
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