My friend Phil asked that, in the flesh. I bumped into him this evening, sharing beers with three more friends by the boating lake; one advantage of the parks filling up is a heightened chance of chance encounters. I'd watched Seaspiracy the night before, and when I got back in tonight and everyone had gone home, I followed it up with 2014's Cowspiracy. The one follows the other almost beat for beat, and who can blame it? Some of those beats are glaringly dumb – for example, the title – but some are brilliant, and the former documentary's disputed revelations are now common talking points. Maybe the same will happen to Seaspiracy, whose claim that over forty per cent of the plastic in our oceans comes from fishing seems far less disputed. As with Cowspiracy, the documentary's most powerful moments might come from seeing the shadow of some higher authority fall over the faces of mainstream environmentalists when asked if anything should be done about this: the good guys fall silent for what seems like minutes, standing at a crossroads invisible to the viewer.
"He had a point..." is literally the voice over for this shot. However, also as with Cowspiracy, the documentary's dumbest moments come from awkwardly staging a moral awakening on the part of our innocent protoganist: "I left there feeling confused" becomes a catchphrase. I commend Ali Tabrizi's bravery, but literally every scene he appears in feels like a bad spoof, and one feels almost duty-bound not to take them seriously. But I'll probably stop eating fish anyway. And if this film's revelations end up having as strong an impact as Cowspiracy's, I won't even have to recommend it.
