Capsule: A whale vertebrate found in Toronto? How did it get there? This film is a history of man and whale as the filmmaker searches for how the bone got where it was found. While the film seems mostly aimed at visitors to the Royal Ontario Museum, there is more than enough of interest along the way. The documentary seems a little more like a disorganized scrapbook than a real narrative, but it is an interesting scrapbook. Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
Documentary filmmaker Peter Lynch goes on a quest for the origin of a whale bone, a vertebrate, originally found in Toronto. Found on April 14, 1988 in Toronto on dry land, it ended in the Royal Ontario Museum where Lynch found it and decided to go on a quest to find how a whale bone could get to Toronto. His quest turns into a study of the history and study of the relationship of man and whale.
He talks about the history and lore of displaying whales and whale skeletons in sideshows and in Barnum's museum. In that museum live whales were put on display and were killed by being put in fresh water. They were replaced and given brine. Then when the museum caught fire the brine was used to fight the fire and the whales burned to death.
Lynch gives us a description of various breeds of whale. He talks about Moby Dick in book and on screen. I have a few nits to pick with the film. Lynch narrates in a near monotone dropping his voice at the end of each sentence. The material is engaging enough but his delivery sabotages his efforts. At one point he says the early history of Toronto is mostly unknown. What does that mean? The history of Toronto yesterday is mostly unknown. Lynch goes everywhere carrying a plastic cast of the vertebrate, regardless of whether it would be useful. Carrying it he looked like Diogenes with his lantern. He hopes to find a matching vertebrate to identify the species. Lynch explores all sorts of possibilities for how the bone could have gotten to Toronto including the possibility of "redlighting," or thrown as waste from a carnival train.
In the end he still has only theories to explain the strange discovery. Bones, Lynch concludes, last beyond our lives and live a life of their own after we are gone.
