In “Patrick and the Whale,” director and editor Mark Fletcher explores a territory often not examined by wildlife filmmakers: the emotional bonds that bind sperm whales and their ability not only to communicate with each other, but also, apparently, with humans.
Produced by Austrian Terra Mater Studios and shown at the Zurich Film Festival Focus Competition, the film focuses on Patrick Dykstra, a passionate wildlife explorer, BAFTA award-winning photographer and host of the Discovery series “Chasing Ocean Giants,” and his relationships with two sperm whale women.
Using stunning underwater footage, the film follows Dykstra as he delves into the fascinating nature of sperm whales, seeking to better understand their intelligence and complexity while highlighting their fraught relationship with humanity.
Dykstra, a former corporate lawyer who gave up his office job to explore the oceans, initially encounters a close encounter with a whale off the coast of the Caribbean island of Dominica as she approaches him, and approaches him within walking distance of him. Sonar appeared to Dextra trying to communicate with him.
The film accompanies Dykstra upon his return to Dominica the following year to find a distinctive whale, which he calls Dolores, hoping to offer a glimpse into the hidden world of her species.
He focuses heavily on Dijkstra and his conviction that the whales are already trying to communicate with him. There was some concern that his views might be seen as “anthropomorphic, eccentric or downright misleading,” Fletcher notes. He adds that the film explores that.
On his return trip, Dijkstra found Dolores and recognized him immediately.
The filmmakers planned to mount a camera on the whale in hopes of capturing never-before-seen footage of the great depths where whales dive and perhaps even watch them feed on giant squid.
Dykstra, feeling an emotional attachment to the whale, was reluctant to conduct the scientific experiment. When things don’t go as planned, the delicate relationship between Pisces and humans is put to the test.
“The film is about the balance of science versus emotion, and about the science of emotion,” Fletcher explains.
“There’s a science about animal emotions—scientists call it ‘active behavior’; they’ve been influenced by their emotions. Here, a wildlife movie presenter explains what it looks like in reality. In ‘Patrick and the Whale,’ Fletcher focused on making audiences feel just like that.”
The director compares Dijkstra’s initial connection with a whale to an alien encounter, particularly that depicted in Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” in which aliens use musical notes to communicate.
While some humpback whales are famous for their singing, sperm whales communicate by making clicking sounds.
“When whales say hi to each other, they peck, then peck, then peck,” Fletcher says. “They talk very slowly to Patrick. Usually when they talk to each other it is in very fast bursts. They slow it down with Patrick because they try so hard to communicate. Then they wait for him to say something and they are very patient. But he can’t.”
However, Fletcher notes that communication between humans and sperm whales – which have the largest brains of all animal species – may become a reality thanks to a scientific project currently seeking to decipher sperm whale language: the Cetacean Translation Initiative, or CETI.
In their ambitious effort to make inter-species communication possible, researchers are using data collected from sperm whales outside Dominica and applying machine learning, coding and robotics to decode their language.
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