BLACKFISH

Gabriela Cowperthwaite has made a stirring and enraging documentary about killer whales kept in captivity in sea parks. The 12,000 pound stud ‘orca’ Tilikum was responsible for three deaths, including that of Sea World trainer Dawn Brancheau in 2010. Sea World blamed Brancheau. Cowperthwaite exposes a decades-long cover-up. Cowperthwaite paints a hugely emotive portrait of the orcas, shown to be vastly intelligent and emotionally complex creatures. This makes their horrific treatment all the more devastating. Interviews with orca hunters and trainers provide an emotional and historical context for the whales’ inevitable aggression. The footage of numerous attacks is terrifying. What’s truly shocking are the court transcripts and news reports showing Sea World’s shameless lies. A former trainer opines that “in fifty years, I think we’ll look back on this practice and think it barbaric”.

SOMETHING IN THE AIR

The work of former film critic Olivier Assayas is always self-referential, and never more so than here. Clement Metayer heads up a cast of non-professionals as French student Gilles. He’s a would-be painter and filmmaker who, like his impassioned classmates, has been profoundly shaped by the tumult of May 1968. Following a year of enraged activism, Gilles and his friends are forced to lay low after one of their bouts of vandalism leaves a guard in a coma. Assayas taps into the naiveté of youth and the idealism of nostalgia, though the script’s lack of levity feels sluggish. Nonetheless, the director’s passion for his characters burns brightly. Extras include director’s interview.

COMPLIANCE

“Can I take your order?” The catchphrase of fast food employees becomes their undoing in this hugely disturbing film by Craig Zobel. Based on over 70 real U.S. prank calls made by a man posing as a police officer (Pat Healy), Chickawich manager Sandra (Ann Dowd, magnificent) accuses young employee Becky (Dreama Walker) of stealing, isolating her in a back room and strip-searching her. Over 90 minutes, Zobel pushes the audience to the outer limits of discomfort as the caller’s demands escalate in cruelty and perversion – and are all obeyed. Zobel brilliantly shows the perceptual leaps people make when provided with slices of information – not just characters, but the audience too. Though containing far less nudity than your average adult comedy, Zobel so effectively creates an atmosphere of sexualisation and exploitation that the film feels far more graphic than it actually is. For those willing to be confronted with the weakness of the human psyche, Compliance proves a hugely challenging and thought-provoking film. Extras include director’s interview.

A HIJACKING

A writer on the excellent political TV drama Borgen and on Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, Tobias Lindholm excels at placing complex, three-dimensional characters in extraordinary situations. Borgen’s Johan Philip Asbæk stars as Mikkel, a cargo freighter’s genial cook who finds himself at the mercy of Somali pirates. Soren Malling is the shipping company’s unflappable CEO, whose sense of personal responsibility leads him to – often clumsily – handle the ransom negotiations himself. Focusing on the professional rather than personal elements, Lindholm skips the actual hijacking. Instead he allows the fear to build as Malling’s careful, low-ball negotiations extend over months. A Hijacking is a taut, lean-and-mean psychological thriller. Hollywood’s version of this was Under Siege. America, you’ve a lot to learn about subtlety.