VERDICT: Evgenia and Maxim Arbugaeva’s astonishing documentary captures the annual arrival of thousands of walruses on a remote beach in the Russian Arctic in awesome intimacy.
Unless you’re familiar with the meaning of its title, it may not be clear from the synopsis or the opening few minutes of sibling filmmakers Evgenia and Maxim Arbugaeva’s Haulout, exactly what the film is about. It begins by charting the mundane activities of marine biologist Maxim Chakilev as he maintains a dilapidated hut on a remote beach in the Chukotka region of the Russian Arctic. He traverses the unforgiving terrain and surveys the foggy ocean from an outcropping, recording a voice memo: ‘Can’t see them yet.’ Eventually, the film’s subjects reveal themselves when around 100,000 walruses descend on the beach.
The sequence in which we see them for the first time is exceptional; Maxim wakes in the dark of the hut and stumbles around with his head torch on before opening the door to find walruses packed right up against the cabin walls. The beach is completely full – a symptom of the melting of sea ice where these marine mammals otherwise spend their time – and the creatures jostle and wrestle for position and space. In one scene Maxim finds them spilling into the hut itself and has to attempt to persuade them to vacate with a broom. The film’s proximity to this spectacle is staggering, and the camerawork, which has the quality of a narrative film as much as a documentary, creates a visceral level of intimacy.
The toll of this crowded haul-out – the term for when seals and walruses temporarily leave the water like this – is soberingly measured after their departure. Driven to a frenzy in the crush, stampedes are common, and bodies are left littered along the coastline. Chakilev walks the now empty beaches sexing and measuring the carcases, attempting to determine the scale of the problem and the vast numbers cited in the closing captions are alarming and tragic. Haulout admirably and powerfully brings to light the scale of the issue and also the diligent work being done by individuals trying, against the odds, to make a difference.
Directors, cinematography, producers: Evgenia Arbugaeva, Maxim Arbugaev
Editors: Evgenia Arbugaeva, Joshua Chadwick
Sound: Anastasia Dushina
Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale Shorts)
In Russian
25 minutes
