The Last Dolphin King (Qué le Pasó al Rey de los Delfines?) is a Spanish documentary film, released on Netflix on 25th November 2022. It is directed by Luis Ansorena and Ernest Riera and produced by Polar Star Films. It explores the rise and fall of José Luis Barbero, a famous dolphin trainer.
The film has a runtime of about 1 hour and 34 minutes and features the relatives and colleagues of Barbero, animal activists, businessmen in the marine parks industry or journalists linked to the career of one of the most renowned dolphin trainers in history.
-The Last Dolphin King Review Contain Some Spoilers-
José Luis Barbero, one of the world’s most famous dolphin trainers, is at the peak of his 30-year career. He has just been hired as a Vice-President by the prestigious Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta (USA) when a 99-second blurry video is released online. It allegedly shows him abusing the dolphins under his care.
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A scandal ensues, but Barbero claims he doesn’t recognize himself in the video. He says he is innocent and a victim of a revenge scheme by some ex-employees. The affair breaks in the news across the globe dividing those who fight to defend or denounce the master dolphin trainer.
The dolphin trainer receives a wave of online hate, including death threats. A few weeks later Barbero disappears. This documentary thriller charts the epic rise and fall of Barbero until the moment of his disappearance. With footage from inside the marine parks where he worked, the film reveals the dark side of the industry from an insider’s perspective.
Was the video of Barbero an attempt to bring down an outdated and cruel industry, or was its real intention a personal vendetta? Those at the heart of this dark and tragic story share their version of events for the first time. Even the activists who filmed the hours of footage of the trainer, came onto the camera to tell their side of the story.
While the documentary film majorly explores how Barbero was such a successful trainer, who flourished everywhere he went and apparently the dolphins followed him around too. The creators have put his tragic end as the backdrop of the documentary and constantly circle around the controversial video, but it doesn’t investigate or explain anything.
Whether the content of the video is true or not is the only question that we want an accurate answer to, but never really get. While the people who put out the video truly believe in Barbero being an aggressive person, be it with his colleagues and assistants or animals. His friends and family never accept or reject the behaviour shown and stay ambiguous throughout.
What I would take out from the film is that Jose Barbero had good intentions, he was an animal lover and he wanted to do good. But his ways were not exactly gentle. He was very strict in his training and would treat everyone the brutally hard way. It was like military training for both, the people involved, as well as the animals. Whether his ways were right or not is where the question lies.
His family and acquaintances defend him because of the result that his training would show. How he trained the dolphins to perform so many exercises in a short time and put on a good show for the audience, was what really mattered. And if you are getting applause in the end, you tend to accept or ignore the intense grind.
Summing Up: The Last Dolphin King
This documentary is basically like a special segment on a news channel which tells us everything we need to know about the victim/perpetrator but never presses on the important questions. Was Jose Barbero a bad person? I believe not, but the issue that was raised through his video (marine life captivity & treatment) seems to instantly go away with him.
If the activists were really concerned about the animals in marine life, Mallorca, the outrage and protest should have gone on till the dolphins were released back to their natural surroundings. However, this case ends up looking like a personal vendetta.
The Last Dolphin King is currently streaming on Netflix.
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