Der Weiße Wal (2001)

Der Weiße Wal plot

A partly fictionalized documentary about the adventures of a white whale that swam up the river Rhine in 1965 under great public interest. The film is partly made up of archive material that not only tells the story of the whale, but also provides a special image of the time. The so-called Beluga whale was soon dubbed Moby Dick by the media (after Herman Melville's legendary philosophical adventure novel). Why the whale swam up the then highly polluted Rhine has never been elucidated. Moreover, the animal turned out to be impossible to catch, despite persistent efforts by the Dutch and German river police, who were supported by a fanatical German zoo director. Moby Dick swam four hundred kilometers to the government center of Bonn. Anyone who was sensitive to ecological symbolism (and there were not that many in 1965) saw a message in this: politics should change its attitude to nature. The maker tells his story in an infectious, ironic way, but between the lines he also takes the message of the whale seriously. He points out that in the years after Moby Dick's visit, treaties were concluded to make the Rhine cleaner, Greenpeace was founded and the first green political parties emerged. The miraculous journey of the whale was one of the first real media events.

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