In the short film Sirenomelia, Emilija Škarnulytė moves away from an anthropocentric view of the environment by using a mermaid to explore an abandoned military base to interlace history within the environment in which it takes place. Through this de-centering of humans, it removes human domination over historic narratives and gives other entities the agency to tell history from their point of view.

The use of a mermaid to explore the ruins of a military base from the Cold War helps rethink the notion that history is limited to humans by viewing the remnants of the base through a non-human perspective. Specifically, the scene of the mermaid swimming around structures connected to the base (Škarnulytė 3:50) showcases how human technologies often impact the environment around them. Rather than solely focusing on how human activities impact other humans, the film shifts perspective to another entity to show us that humans do not exist on the Earth alone, and that what we do is not limited to implications that just affect humans. Škarnulytė allows us to see history from a different perspective and how events like the Cold War make an impact on the environment around it. The militarization of the aquatic environment doesn’t just affect humans, but also the beings that exist in that environment, who now have to deal with the aftermath of these deteriorating structures. It is the mermaid that is in control of what the audience sees as we flow through the different settings with her. Humans become the spectators as we watch the mermaid swim through the decommissioned base, making the mermaid and the environment that surrounds her the main characters of the film. The environment is no longer a passive being as it illuminates the marks of human ambition that have been inflicted upon it.

This new perspective forces humans to reassess their ability to use the environment as they see fit since the environment and those who inhabit it are not immune to its effects. Simply because the sea has remained constant doesn’t mean that it’s not constantly changing below the waves and full of life. It’s not an endless resource that humans can utilize for their own benefit without any consequence. Having a mermaid display how nature is stamped with human domination gives the audience the capacity to rethink the belief that nature and all those who inhabit it are separate from human history and conflicts. Nature is not a submissive entity that is immune to these repercussions, as it showcases throughout the film how the human desire to pillage leaves scars on the environment and those who live within it. In turn, this complicates humans’ ability to view the environment solely as a resource because the film brings to light the idea that nature is alive, allowing it to feel the ramifications of human domination over the environment.