In early August, Modest Mouse released the music video actor Health Ledger directed for the song “King Rat”, a bonus track off of 2007′s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank.

The animated video was conceptualized and directed by Ledger, but left unfinished when the actor died of an accidental overdose in January 2008. The Masses, the film company that Ledger was a partner in, completed the video in his honor. The video was animated by Terry Gilliam (Twelve Monkeys, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas).

Disturbing and intense (consider this before watching), the video presents Ledger’s unique perspective on illegal whale hunting, an abuse which he stood vehemently against. It reverses the role of whales and the poachers who hunt them off the coast of Australia. In the video, humans are hunted by a ship of whales. They are harpooned, beaten with clubs, skinned alive, processed and made into seal food.

Modest Mouse chose to release the video in honor of Ledger, being his last directorial work. According to the band, Ledger approached them with the concept for the video back in January 2007. “Heath and I have a mutual friend and when we were in Australia, some of us in the band went out on a boat with him and his family and friends and talked about the idea,” Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock told VH1 in 2007. “The idea sort of dropped, but then he just sent me an e-mail saying that he wanted to do it.”

The band wrote the following in a post on their Myspace blog. “Always one to operate from his heart and take a stand for what he cared deeply about, Heath’s intention was to raise awareness on modern whaling practices through a potent visual piece without having to say a word. It was his way to let the story, in its candid reversal, speak for itself.”

Proceeds from the iTunes download of the video benefit the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an international non-profit organization committed to ending the slaughter of ocean wildlife worldwide.

Modest Mouse | MySpace

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