Review: Joshua Zeman’s The Loneliest Whale Demystifies the Search for 52

While 52 remains something of a mystery, The Loneliest Whale renders him less of a metaphor.

The Loneliest Whale: The Search for 52
Photo: Bleecker Street Media

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. 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. 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. The animal was discovered, if that’s the right word, in 1989. “52” isn’t a serial number from some oceanic census; it’s short for “52 hertz,” the frequency of the animal’s mating call. 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 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. (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. 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.

A misfit, a loner, an unrequited lover—this idea of 52 resonated with all the lonely people. Songs were written, T-shirts printed, and tattoos acquired. Meanwhile, underwater audio monitoring lost track of the whale. 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. Then a new sound sample placed 52 in a convenient place. He appeared to have relocated from Alaska to southern California. Zeman assembled a scientific team led by Oregon marine-mammal expert Bruce Mate and hit the surf. During the week-long mission, the searchers took tissue samples, placed tracking devices, and dropped audio sensors overboard.

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The quest serves mostly as a framing device for the documentary, which is more functional than stylish. Indeed, The Loneliest Whale ends up relying on a mishmash of archival material and off-camera developments, lessening its cohesiveness and cinematic impact. But the compelling story ultimately compensates for the technical (and financial) impossibility of spending months or even years physically tracking 52. Zeman punctuates the at-sea scenes with sequences about the brutal history of whaling, the growing danger of ship strikes, and the huge effect of the 1970 album Songs of the Humpback Whale, which inspired many to think for the first time about saving whales. (This flashback occasions a clip from an earnest pro-whale episode of The Partridge Family.) A computer animation looks as if it might be a chart of migrating whales but actually shows an ocean teeming with container ships.

Some of this background information is well-known, and the Moby Dick references all but inevitable. But most of the digressions prove relevant to the hunt for 52. Zeman and the scientists learn a few things about the whale—or is that whales?—along the way. The search doesn’t finish with the apparent end of the film, or even with its intriguing epilogue, which answers one longstanding question about the creature. But the documentary does significantly undermine the popular notion of a whale immersed in alienation. While 52 remains something of a mystery, The Loneliest Whale renders him less of a metaphor.

Score: 
 Director: Joshua Zeman  Screenwriter: Lisa Schiller, Joshua Zeman  Distributor: Bleecker Street Media  Running Time: 90 min  Rating: NR  Year: 2021  Buy: Video

Mark Jenkins

Mark Jenkins writes about art, film, music, and more. His writing frequently appears in The Washington Post.

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