Whalefall is the term given to what happens after a whale dies. The sinking of a whale carcass to the seafloor creates an extravaganza of food in deep waters. It essentially creates its own ecosystem for 50 to 100 years. The term also is the title of a film based on a novel of the same name. The event, the death of a whale, is an allegory for fatherhood and grief.
The film follows Jay, a young man who comes home on the anniversary of his father’s death. The relationship with his father was complicated and broken and the guilt over refusing to see his father before his death weighs on him. He decides to go scuba diving where his father died in an effort to find his body. Instead, he is inadvertently swallowed by a sperm whale – with the help of a squid. He has just under an hour of air to figure out how to get out of the whale. During this time, he has flashbacks to conversations he had with his father, all of which include hints on how to escape the situation.
The hour that Jay spends in the whale is filled with a fight with the squid, a short lived venture into the digestive part of the whale’s stomach, hurting the whale’s larynx, and the whale getting outwardly attacked by a pod of orcas. It’s a unrelenting claustrophobic sequence with moments of body horror juxtaposed by moments of clarity. Jay vacillates between giving up and trying the next thing that might save his life. He even befriends a jellyfish that finds itself in the same situation he is in.
Josh Brolin plays Jay’s father who was afraid of screwing up his kid when he was born and so adamantly tried to steer him in what he believed to be the right direction that he ended up pushing Jay away. Jay, to his credit, comes to terms with the relationship near the end of the ordeal in the whale’s stomach and realizes that his father had his best interests at heart even if he was overbearing about it. This is the real heart of the film. Yeah, it’s claustrophobic and the body horror is realistic, but this film carries with it what it means to be family and what it takes to forgive. That coming to terms with the father’s death and their relationship could be Jay’s whalefall. The food he needs to live his best live going forward.
4 out of 5 stars. Now I need to read the book.
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Whalefall is the term given to what happens after a whale dies. The sinking of a whale carcass to the seafloor creates an extravaganza of food in deep waters. It essentially creates its own ecosystem for 50 to 100 years. The term also is the title of a film based on a novel of the same name. The event, the death of a whale, is an allegory for fatherhood and grief.
The film follows Jay, a young man who comes home on the anniversary of his father’s death. The relationship with his father was complicated and broken and the guilt over refusing to see his father before his death weighs on him. He decides to go scuba diving where his father died in an effort to find his body. Instead, he is inadvertently swallowed by a sperm whale – with the help of a squid. He has just under an hour of air to figure out how to get out of the whale. During this time, he has flashbacks to conversations he had with his father, all of which include hints on how to escape the situation.
The hour that Jay spends in the whale is filled with a fight with the squid, a short lived venture into the digestive part of the whale’s stomach, hurting the whale’s larynx, and the whale getting outwardly attacked by a pod of orcas. It’s a unrelenting claustrophobic sequence with moments of body horror juxtaposed by moments of clarity. Jay vacillates between giving up and trying the next thing that might save his life. He even befriends a jellyfish that finds itself in the same situation he is in.
Josh Brolin plays Jay’s father who was afraid of screwing up his kid when he was born and so adamantly tried to steer him in what he believed to be the right direction that he ended up pushing Jay away. Jay, to his credit, comes to terms with the relationship near the end of the ordeal in the whale’s stomach and realizes that his father had his best interests at heart even if he was overbearing about it. This is the real heart of the film. Yeah, it’s claustrophobic and the body horror is realistic, but this film carries with it what it means to be family and what it takes to forgive. That coming to terms with the father’s death and their relationship could be Jay’s whalefall. The food he needs to live his best live going forward.
4 out of 5 stars. Now I need to read the book.
Discover more from Becky Tyler Art and Photography
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
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