Leviathan (2012) review

Experimental 'documentarians' Castaing-Taylor and Paravel hook several GoPro cameras on a fishing vessel - and operate other cameras themselves - in order to visually explore a hazardous (and violent) profession in an unorthodox manner. The intentionally open-ended structure is to allow for viewer input/interpretation, though despite the sometimes apocalyptic images and icky images of beheaded sea life, I only found it engages on a purely sensory level: a glorified thesis statement. What it amounts to, then, is an arthouse Deadliest Catch in which purposely obscured footage, unsteady camerawork, poor angles and amplified/altered diagetic sounds can leave one thinking this is about everything from the brutality of nature, the arduous nature of being a fisherman, the end of times (white seagulls over black backgrounds!), the writings of Thomas Hobbes, the Bible, etc. ... or one can see it as a superficial if aesthetically startling/off-kilter poem that is limited in its intellectual implications.