LOS ANGELES: A music video conceived and directed by Heath Ledger has debuted 18 months after the Oscar-winning actor’s shocking death. Ledger whose marvellous turn as The Joker in The Dark Knight won him a Golden Globe and an Oscar, conceived the video for Modest Mouse’s song King Rat in 2007, reportedly in order to raise awareness about commercial whaling off the coast of his native Australia.

The six-minute video features a blue whale captain out hunting in the choppy sea for, ironically enough, human beings. The powerfully bizarre clip shows off the same keen sense of black humour that propelled Ledger’s The Joker to Academy Award glory. A crew of whales and dolphins are hard at work throughout the video, catching humans from the sea, skinning them and ultimately packaging them as food. Modest Mouse-front man Isaac Brock, in an interview, told VH1 how he and Ledger came up with the quirky concept.