Vertigo Sea

I have found a short three minute clip on Vimeo which is a shortened clip of one of the three films of Vertigo Sea that we went to see in Bristol. The clip was of the second film that we saw throughout the exhibition which was on three screens. When I watched the film at the exhibition I found it very hard to watch the three screens at once and to able to understand what exactly was going on but when I watched the clip on Vimeo I was able to watch all three screens at the same time and understand what was going on. After I had watched all three screens in Bristol I sort of understood what had happened afterwards however while watching the three screens on Vimeo I understood what was going on as I was watching the clip. In the Anolfini gallery the film was showing me the true reality of whale catching and killing, the process of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly and the relation between how man and animal are similar. In the clip on Vimeo I got what the clip was showing before the end. In the clip it was showing how fish are being captured to be used for food for humans, it also showed some black men who looked as though they were being kept as slaves. From watching the clip I feel that John Akomfrah is trying to get across the point of how slaves are still being kept in this day and age. I found that watching on three screens was very difficult and a very unusual way of showing the effects of animal cruelty but I think that it’s quite an effective way of putting the message through as it really shows the impacts of the different situations all together but on the other hand it could take away the strong message that is trying to be put across.