CURRENT SEA (2020, USA) movie review, plot, rating

Lately, a whole sea of ​​documentaries has been being made that problematize pollution and destruction of the environment, climate change and the like, which we could place in an environmental metal subgenre. In this research documentary that also functions as an exciting thriller, director Christopher Smith addressed the topic of illegal fishing in Cambodia. Although illegal fishing and overfishing of other marine creatures is probably a universal problem, the situation in Cambodia is particularly interesting. This Asian country borders on the one hand with Vietnam, on the other with Thailand, countries that have obviously already devastated their fish stock, so the fishermen there are therefore invading Cambodian waters.

CURRENT SEA review, plot

And it probably wouldn’t even be such a problem now if the kind of fishing we’ll see here really isn’t scary and completely abnormal. We are guided through this story by Matt Blomberg, a young man who was once a sports journalist in Australia and after moving to Cambodia began to engage in investigative journalism. The trip will lead him to Paul Ferber, a British diver who also settled in Cambodia and gave himself a not at all simple mission to protect the seabed there and preserve the fish stock. With a group of enthusiasts, Ferber is trying to obtain a protected area of ​​the sea so that the fish stock can be restored, and it will soon become clear to us why.
These people are not fighting against the classic fishing in which traditional fishermen throw nets and catch them by rubbing, whistling and mullet. We’ll see how there’s a technique here called Trawling that involves literally plowing the entire seabed and hauling in nets absolutely anything that gets in the way. After such a dense network passes through a certain area, to the bottom of which a heavy structure is attached so that it can plow the bottom, and in any case it is additionally reinforced with electricity, literally burnt earth remains at the bottom of the sea. Absolutely everything that was there disappears, and in the nets there is a pile of young fish, crabs, seahorses and the like that cannot be consumed, and of course it is thrown dead back into the sea. We follow in “Current Sea” a group of enthusiasts who are trying to fight against illegal fishing and the techniques they devised to save something. Rating 7/10. 

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