Indeed, The Loneliest Whale ends up relying on a mishmash of archival material and off-camera developments, lessening its cohesiveness and cinematic impact. The quest serves mostly as a framing device for the documentary, which is more functional than stylish.
During the week-long mission, the searchers took tissue samples, placed tracking devices, and dropped audio sensors overboard. Zeman assembled a scientific team led by Oregon marine-mammal expert Bruce Mate and hit the surf. He appeared to have relocated from Alaska to southern California. Then a new sound sample placed 52 in a convenient place. When Zeman was first planning his quest, the whale seemingly hadn’t been heard by people since 2003, and couldn’t be presumed still alive. Meanwhile, underwater audio monitoring lost track of the whale. Songs were written, T-shirts printed, and tattoos acquired. He was imagined to be solitary, unable to attract a mate because no other whales could hear or understand his call-and “he” is likely correct, since among larger cetaceans only males are known to vocalize.Ī misfit, a loner, an unrequited lover-this idea of 52 resonated with all the lonely people. (The military expert who Zeman interviews at one point doesn’t get more specific than that.) Paranoia lessened when the late oceanographer Bill Watkins, who appears on screen in archival photos, identified the noise as “biologic.” With 52 no longer a classified secret, information on him was released to the media, where he became a sensation. The animal entered American consciousness as a security threat simply because its call was unprecedented, the sound was feared to be that of some sort of a weapon. No other whale was known to sing in this range, which is at the low end of human hearing but above most cetacean vocalizing.
The loneliest whale serial number#
“52” isn’t a serial number from some oceanic census it’s short for “52 hertz,” the frequency of the animal’s mating call. The animal was discovered, if that’s the right word, in 1989.
At first, it seems as if Zeman is stalling, but the film’s asides eventually add up to a satisfying, if neither urgent nor definitive, account of his quest for the whale sometimes called 52. But his wasn’t a ticking-clock hunt, as the director-producer-narrator indicates by ending the film’s introductory Pacific Ocean sequence by cutting to himself in his New York workspace. Joshua Zeman was able to bankroll just seven days at sea in pursuit of the titular cetacean of his documentary The Loneliest Whale: The Search for 52.
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