Film Discussion: In the Heart of the Sea (2015)

I don't often watch films anymore. I just can't find the time but when a stretch does present itself, I like to immerse myself in someone else's vision for a while. Last night, it was Ron Howard's turn to present, in the highly esteemed theatre known as my lounge, his cinematic creation In the Heart of the Sea.

I didn't know anything about it at all before watching it. I simply chose it for the rather romantic looking ship, the period costume Chris Hemsworth was wearing and maybe because, well, Chris Hemsworth. My men folk were watching football and I felt that I could rightly indulge in a little masculine eye candy for an hour or two. I may be middle-aged but I still have an appreciation for beauty although less so for assumed American accents, I would discover. However, it wasn't bad enough for me to be completely unconvinced and so, I picked up my knitting and sank into the sofa to be transported to Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.

The film, if you are not familiar with it, tells the story of the good ship Essex, a whaler in the early 1800s which heads off on a whaling trip and (spoiler alert) never returns. It's got a stellar cast: the aforementioned Hemsworth; Cillian Murphy; Tom Holland; Brendan Gleeson; Ben Wishaw; Benjamin Walker; Michelle Fairley. It's about life on the high seas; it's about tensions between men vying for position; it's about friendships built on shared childhood and experiences.

And it's about a big old white whale.

Sounds familiar? Yes, well, it should because of course, it's Herman Melville's Moby Dick, isn't it? But this isn't Moby Dick, per se. No, the premise of this movie is to show a monstrously big whale who, like Charles Bronson in the Deathwish films, is on a mission of vengeance for all the whales who've gone before him and been turned into lamp oil and had their intestines harvested for ambergris.

It is also to show where Melville got his inspiration for a tale which is known the world over. Howard does this by having the story of what happened to the Essex retold in a first person account with Melville as its recipient, the delivery of it coming from Nickerson (Tom Holland as younger/ Brendan Gleeson as older) who was a surviving crew member of the Essex, the ship having been sunk by a whale attack.

There's a book been written about it on which the film was based.

We flashback to the action of the ship through Nickerson's recalling of its voyage and a tale of danger and endurance emerges, macabre in places and like Moby Dick difficult to believe, and yet, who are we to doubt it?

It was a ripping good yarn in all, Ron Howard's direction creating a spectacle on the screen of stormy seas and swarthy sailors. It was also hair-raising in its depiction of how dangerous harpooning whales was as a way to make a living, whilst providing impressive sympathy for the whales, which are the unsuspecting victims of man's need for their oil, or rather, the money made in the selling of it.

I've never read Moby Dick. I remember seeing Gregory Peck lashed to a big white whale before it plunged beneath the waves in a film seen as a child. I'm not big on stories about obsession because I'm not driven that way but I am wondering if it's worth a visit, classic of American Literature that it is. This film has certainly piqued my interest in it.

But more than that, what this film has done is remind me of how rapacious humans are as a race and how, in our assumption that we are dominant, we feel it is our right to see every living creature as a resource to be exploited, in this case and in most cases, for profit. There is a scene in the film where Hemsworth, who plays Chase, has a moment of connection with his quarry. It reeks of sentiment but is also poignant, because it causes a pause and a chance for Chase to think. Like the whale, prior to this point, he has been intent on revenge and yet, in the killing of this magnificent beast, what will be gained? It is an empty emotion, revenge: the point where it is satisfied is the most vacuous.

What this film also offers is a dilemma which has been proffered in other films, most notably Alive: could you eat the flesh of another dead human in order to survive? I know. Grim ponderings indeed.

I think it is very easy in our modern day society to assume disgust and revulsion as a reaction to this question and I am not discounting that. But, I wonder if that is a product of a life where food is convenient and hunger, for most of us, not a consideration. Have you ever really been starving? I haven't. I've felt hunger but starvation? No.

As a writer, I'm always putting myself into situations and trying to imagine how I would feel. Could I eat a fellow man? I don't know. Is there a distinction to be made between killing a fellow man for food and feasting on a man already dead? Maybe. Either way, the prospect requires some serious consideration and I'm not sure that we could ever really know, could we, until presented with that dilemma? It's very simple, I think, to say "No", having just eaten a bowl of blueberry-strewn porridge but if you'd not eaten for days, would you categorically be able to say "Human thigh? Not for me, thanks"?

I'm going to leave that thought with you and finish by saying that this film has been given a Rotten Tomatoes score of 2 out of 5 which I feel is harsh. It is a good story with many facets to it and in this age of computer generated images, the depiction of raging seas and giant beasts of the sea are brilliant. It's not a bad way to spend a couple of hours at all, especially if, like me, you like history, the sea, action and Hemsworth, not necessarily in that order.