The Crocodile

Encounter

“The eye of the crocodile—the giant estuarine crocodile of northern Australia— is golden flecked, reptilian, beautiful. It has three eyelids. It appraises you coolly it seems, as if seldom impressed, as one who knows your measure. But it can also light up with an unexpectedly intense glint if you manage to engage its interest. This was the mistake I made on that day in February 1985 paddling a canoe on the backwaters.”

— Val Plumwood (2012) The Eye of the Crocodile, p. 18

In 1985, Val was attacked by a crocodile while kayaking alone in the Kakadu national park in the Northern Territory. She was death rolled three times before being released from the crocodile’s jaws. She crawled for hours through swamp with appalling injuries before being rescued. This near-death experience was life changing for Val and her philosophical outlook, both transforming and widely publicising her more-than-human ethics.

This documentary by David Greig follows Val Plumwood as she returns to Kakadu National Park years after her near-fatal crocodile attack to face her fears and encounter these animals close-up once more.

Kakadu - Dry season (Yegge) in the stone country

“That extreme heightening of consciousness evoked at the point of death is, as many testify, of a most revelatory and life-changing kind—for those who, against all odds, are given a reprieve and survive. The extraordinary visions and insights that appear in those last seconds can be hard to reconcile with our normal view of the world. In the vivid intensity of those last moments, when great, toothed jaws descend upon you, it can HIT YOU LIKE A THUNDERCLAP that you were completely wrong about it all—not only about what your own personal life meant, but about what life and death themselves actually mean.“

— Val Plumwood, 2012, from The Eye of the Crocodile p. 18