This short film is a kind of follow-up/companion piece to Leviathan, the deep-sea fishing documentary Castaing-Taylor & Paravel released in 2012. It clocks in at twenty-eight minutes and consists of a single unbroken shot from a camera mounted in the small kitchen/dining area of the fishing vessel featured in Leviathan. For nearly thirty minutes, we just watch as various fishermen stumble wearily into the room, wolf down a quick meal, watch the television that seems to be mounted right above the camera and/or stare blankly into space. Some people will find this even more boring than Leviathan, I reckon, because it doesn’t have the energy and chaos of Leviathan at its most intense. But I found this one to have something that was kind of lacking from Leviathan, which is something close to human connection. These guys don’t talk much to the camera or to each other, but there’s something kind of endearing about watching a guy struggling to stay awake long enough to eat a sandwich or just kind of staring blankly at a TV and occasionally chuckling. This short can be found, by the way, on the Blu-Ray release of Leviathan and, if you make it through Leviathan, I would highly recommend it. If you don’t make it through Leviathan, you’ll probably think this is worse. Anyway, I liked it. 3 stars.
tl;dr – literal “on the wall” documentary is an unbroken shot of weary fishermen coming and going in their tiny kitchen; if you liked Leviathan, this short film is an interesting follow-up. 3 stars.