Orca
The Secret Agent Network
January 7 - 13
After a fisherman (Richard Harris) kills a pregnant whale, her mate follows him back to a Newfoundland village, unleashing an operatic cycle of revenge that destroys boats, homes, and the community around them.
A gloriously unruly entry in the post-Jaws wave of “nature attacks” movies—one that Kleber selected instead of Spielberg’s shark—Michael Anderson’s Orca opens with a gentle mating pair of killer whales before vaulting into operatic revenge. After a fisherman (Richard Harris) botches an attempted capture and hauls a mortally wounded, pregnant whale onto his deck, her mate surfaces to witness the death and follows him back to a small Newfoundland village. What begins as a simple encounter spirals into a cycle of retaliation where boats sink, houses collapse, and the town’s uneasy alliance with the fisherman fractures as the orca methodically draws him out to sea. Shot along the rugged Newfoundland coast and dappled by Ennio Morricone’s mournful score, the film, in its own pulpy way, gradually opens into a much more serious expression of grief… and features a quite memorable leg-severing set piece.
"The success of Jaws opened up the gates of hell or heaven, depending on how you look at it. The industry had a series of 'revenge of nature' beasts, animals, and creepy crawlies. We had Piranha, the Joe Dante film, which is probably the best one of the bunch, The Swarm, The Pack, Tentacles, and Tintorera, which is another shark movie. One of them was a very expensive-looking Dino De Laurentiis production called Orca. It's a really strange film. It does tell the story quite well, I think. It's a film that I found, well, at 10, I was very impressed and even disturbed by the film... It's a curiosity. I think it's an interesting opportunity to watch something which is so '70s in its 'revenge of nature' aspect."
—Kleber Mendonça Filho
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