Rupert Murray’s documentary The End of the Line, is the first feature length film to examine the devastating impact of overfishing and the catastrophic consequences which seem to have gone almost unnoticed- until now.
“I had a sense that there was something terrible happening out at sea, there were a few sporadic newspaper articles filtering through to me here in London.” It was when Murray picked up a copy of investigative journalist, Charles Clover’s book, The End of the Line, that he realised this would be the topic of his next filmoverfishing, “The book is a mine of incredible jaw-dropping detail. I read it, and I suddenly realised the problem was much much worse than I’d imagined”.
This filmmaker’s passion for his subject gave him a very real desire to make a positive difference, “Everywhere we went [for filming] I was just bowled over by one shocking fact after another. I want the audience to feel that relentless onslaught of mind-numbing details and statistics and data. In a sense I want the audience to hear as much as possible, because the more you hear, the more shocked you’ll become, the more likely you are to change the way you do things.”
Murray and his team travelled from Alaska to Senegal, the Straits of Gibraltar to Tokyo, to show the enormity of the problem. When asked, Murray is quite blunt about the reasons why the plight of fish has been ignored for so long, “The problem is that fish are so alien to us that people find it difficult to get worked up about their demise. You look at them and you think ‘perfect food’. I find when I look at fish there is something primeval that says ‘that would be delicious on a bbq’. It is very difficult to get rid of that, I don’t know how you get rid of that, I mean the reason I made the film is because I love seafood.”
The film’s purpose isn’t to dissuade its viewers from eating fish, Murray really wants to illuminate the issue, so that we can start making informed decisions about what we eat, ‘Fish and the ocean are such a massive part of Australian culture yet how many people know how many local stock are overfished, and where the fish you actually eat comes from?”
While the film’s scientific experts predict an end of global fish stocks by 2048, ultimately there is a message of hope and individual power woven through the documentary’s narrative, with the experts stating that if fishing practices and regulations improve, the tide can be turned back before it is too late. Murray isn’t too optimistic yet- “This is a 360 degree issue, every way you look there is a massive problem; in any fishery, anywhere in the world, even the sustainable ones, even the ones doing the best practice, there are still massive issues.”
Watching The End of the Line you start to wonder why it has taken so long for this serious environmental crisis with huge food- shortage implications to be revealed, and it appears Murray feels the same way. With the voice of a man obviously frustrated by bureaucracy and weak political will, he makes it clear that you simply have to do what you can, “It would have been nice to have made this film ten years ago, when there was three quarters of the catastrophe, but unfortunately the world doesn’t work like that. It’s sad that we had to wait until it gets extremely bad before you can start really shocking people about it.”
First Published in The Brag 17/05/10
