Barbed Water (1969) User Reviews

Bloody whale hunting

[clanciai · 8/10 · 8 November 2019]

This is a film of whaling, and you feel like being thrown into the world of Moby Dick. It is a documentary and only interesting as such, while Orson Welles' recital of abstract poems of the sea and whaling does not much to enhance the substance of the film. You get into the lives of the villagers of the Azores, but you are not shown much of the islands, as most of the action is at sea. The only relief and great moment of joy in the film is when one whale hunt fails as the whale succeeds in turning the hunting whale boat over. At last one victory for one of the poor persecuted and butchered whales, while it was only temporary...

A terrible treasure.

[anderson-ja-20757 · 8/10 · 17 June 2021]

Although an awful piece of history, Whaling is in fact history. Most places on the planet were never able to record whaling functions in video and those that did are black and white and jumbled. This documentary, in color no less, shows how shore whaling was done and continued into more modern times. Although terrible in nature, the preservation of it's historicity is a treasure.

That being said, for a whaling documentary it sure shows a lot of sitting on land.