Oceans

Director: Jacques Perrin, and Jacques Cluzaud
Starring: Narrated by Jacques Perrin
Distributor: Hopscotch Films
Runtime: 101 mins. Reviewed in Nov 2011

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Rating notes:

This is a film about five oceans (the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, and the Arctic), and their assorted marine life. The film takes us from one ocean to the other, and the main focus is on the animals that inhabit them. The film is quite beautiful to watch and is suitable for all ages to see. The personalities of the animals come to the fore in the film, and it is almost impossible not to attribute human motivations to what they do. We are shown scenes of mothers trying (sometimes unsuccessfully) to protect their young, of predators caught unusually In tender moments, and of killer animals catching and devouring their prey. Nature can be edifying to see, but also off-putting, especially when survival of the fittest is at stake, and this movie is all about nature as it exists in our oceans.

The impact of the film rests almost entirely in its stunning visuals, but it also raises multiple themes. It comments on the rise of pollution in the world’s oceans, advocates harmony between human and marine life, and shows what might happen when the power of the waves is unleashed. It argues strongly for conservation, and takes up the cause of species protection. One may infer all of these themes from what the movie shows, but it doesn’t carry a single message in the way that “An Inconvenient Truth” did about global warming, or the very recent movie, “Waiting for Superman” does about education. Species extinction might be the closest to the mark, but the film speeds you along as it moves from ocean to ocean, showing how the “seas’ inhabitants” live, play, die, and survive. In doing so, it moves the viewer from one glorious scene to the next.

The film has many unforgettable moments. We see a pack of Pinnipeds basking in the sun, an army of soldier crabs advancing en masse at the bottom of the sea, a huge killer shark swimming tolerantly alongside a tiny human, a sea lion foraging around a shopping cart lying on an ocean bed, and a massive walrus in the Arctic watching tenderly and lovingly over her young. The diversity of the five oceans exposes us to a breathtaking range of marine animals, life under the waves, and colourful ocean happenings.

Inevitably with a documentary of this kind, one must compare it to the Richard Attenborough-type productions, which appear regularly on Australian TV, most of which come to us from the B.B.C. in Britain. This film has the same sweep across continents and environments, and the same focus on the animals which live in them, but two things are different. There is an extraordinary intimacy to the photography in the film, that makes you almost an embarrassed watcher; and most of the filmed sequences of the marine life are staged choreographed routines set to choral and non-choral background music.

Made for the cinema, this film should be seen on the large movie screen. There is not a lot of coherence in its spell-binding images and scenes. However, the film has some powerful and relevant social messages to communicate, and it offers a spectacular ride through the oceans of our world.