Personal commentary on The Cove

1. Does the camera ‘take sides’?
I'm not really sure if the camera 'took sides' or not. I feel like there's kind of a scale it goes on, from either being on one side or the other, to being neutral or in the middle. The camera for The Cove, I feel like it's more of a neutral point of view, leaning a slight bit towards being for the dolphins. Since it was filmed as a documentary on the dolphins in Taiji, it is automatically going to have a focus, but I'm not sure if that's the same as taking sides/being biased.
The information it did give us was through showing what the dolphins go through, how the Japanese think of them, how the meat is falsely packaged, and so on.

2. Does the film allow the audience to think for itself, and to draw its own conclusions, or does it manipulate audience reaction and emotion?
I think the film is more focused on giving the information in a manner that is persuasive, rather then just presenting the information and letting the viewer decide what they think. There are points where the information given is just presenting the information, because it's hard to present it in a way that's biased. It's just what is. An example would be when they were talking/showing how the Japanese bang poles together to make a wall of sound, which herds the dolphins into the cove, or when they took the sound from the cove of how the dolphins cry out to one another. Another example would be when they just showed the footage of the dolphins being speared to death, being stabbed over and over until they were dead.

3. Does it support opinion with evidence?
Yes, I believe the entire film supports everything they claim with some sort of evidence. They are saying that the Japanese in Taiji are covering up that they kill the dolphins, and they are covering up how they falsely package the meat, and then to support this, they interview random people on the street asking if they know about the dolphins. And, they bought meat packaged as other things, and did the same tests on all the meat, and found out it was dolphin.

4. Assess one possible interpretation that it reduces particular groups and individuals referred to, or participating in the film, to simplistic polar opposites of good and evil, heroes and villains.
The film does make sides out to be good end evil. The Japanese in Taiji are made out to be the 'evil' ones, especially the men who are killing the dolphins and trapping them there. While the men who were going in there, the activists, were made out to be the heroes, or the 'good' guys.

5. Through the range of film making techniques presented, are we overtly manipulated into accepting uncritically the film’s version of truth?
Yes, because it's just human nature to feel/care for the animals(in a lot of cases). The information given in The Cove is just what was literally happening in Taiji, and then there are other people/activists, that are backing everything up with their opinions and their knowledge outright, right there, letting everyone know.

6. Does the film educate, does it enlighten us, or does it ‘preach to the converted’?
I feel like it does all of the above to different crowds. In schools when it's shown I think a lot of the time it helps to educate the students on what is going on, and then in Japan, I feel like it enlightened a lot of the people there about what was really going on with the dolphins there, and how they were being slaughtered and the meat packaged wrong.
On the other hand, if the same person is to see the film over and over, it's just preaching to the converted. But I feel that way about any documentaries and so on, that's just what's going to happen.