Océans (2010)
Directed by Jacques Perrin, Jacques Cluzaud

Film Review

Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud, the duo who brought us Le Peuple migrateur (2001), a startling documentary on avian migration, won further acclaim for their equally arresting follow up, a jaw-dropping visual odyssey which both celebrates the beauty of the world beneath the waves and reminds of our obligation to preserve it for future generations.  Using the latest in advanced camera technology, Océans takes us where few previous wildlife documentaries have been able to go before and cannot fail to impress with its stunningly vivid images of a world that is so weird and colourful it is almost beyond our imagination.  This is one of the most breathtaking explorations of the natural world you will ever see, and watching it is like stepping through a portal into a magical fantasy world to encounter some of the most beautiful and most bizarre of nature's creations.

But be warned - this is no cosy little fairytale.  Life within the oceans may at first appear idyllic, with swathes of multi-coloured creatures swimming contentedly together through harmonious waters, but horror and unspeakable violence are not far away.  A crab and a crustacean fight a bitter battle to the death, viciously mutilating each other in the process.  A thing that looks like a rock suddenly comes to life and gulps down a passing fish in the blink of an eye. Hundreds of cute baby turtles are lazily crawling along a beach when a flock of albatrosses suddenly swoop down and snatch them up in their fierce beaks - only one of the turtles makes it back to the safety of the sea, the rest are mercilessly slain.  Life is nasty, brutish, and short for many of the poor wretches that live in the sea.  Pretty it may be, paradise it is not.

The most fearsome predator of all is man.  In the film's most shocking sequence (which was removed for some screenings in the United States because it was deemed unsuitable for a family audience), a whole array of wildlife are caught in a fishing net and dragged to the surface, where they are systematically butchered.  Once harvested, many of the creatures are thrown back into the sea, blood pouring from gashes as they sink to the ocean floor, polluting the waters with a fiery red mist.  But the greater threat that man poses to sealife is not from fishing but from pollution, a gradual, perhaps irreversible, violation of the finely tuned ecosystem.  Hundred of species have already been rendered extinct by man's poisoning of the oceans, and many more are likely to go the same way.  As the bio-diversity pyramid starts to tumble, can we be sure that we will survive?  Perhaps the oceans are the key to our own future.

Océans is not so much a wildlife documentary as a rich visual poem intended to make us appreciate more the world that we inhabit.  It is a genuine labour of love and has much the same impact today that Jacques-Yves Cousteau's groundbreaking Le Monde du silence had when it was first seen in the mid-1950s.  On a 50 million euro budget, Océans took four years to film in 50 different locations around the world.  Over ninety different species of sealife are included, the most extraordinary being the Asian Sheepshead Wrasse, a fish that bares an astonishing resemblance to the Elephant Man in David Lynch's famous film.  You'd think the sea is one vast Frankenstein laboratory in which nature  (unhampered by man) continuously experiments, intent on trying out every possible permutation of genetic structures for its own amusement.

If the film had confined itself to wowing us with stunning spectacles of the natural world (humpback whales somersaulting merrily in the sunset, dolphins surging in elegant battalions, cuttlefish performing their exotic dances in the inky depths, and such like) it would have been impossible to fault.  Where it goes awry is in its half-hearted attempt to engage with ecological issues, which is does in a slightly patronising and simplistic fashion.  It would have been far better if Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud had made two films - one showing us the marvels in the sea, the second a deeper analysis of man's impact on the ocean fauna and the threats that follow.  As it is, Océans feels like an awkward hybrid and the impact of its visually stunning first half is somewhat weakened by the lackadaisical eco-posturing that punctuates the second half. 

Bruno Coulais's bombastic music is also something the film could have done without - watch the film a second time with the sound turned off and the chance is you will find it provides a much richer emotional experience.  As irksome as its minor flaws are, however, they are not enough to prevent Océans from being a truly remarkable and thoroughly engaging film.  In spite of the countless underwater wildlife documentaries that have been made since Jacques-Yves Cousteau first took us into the silent world, half a century ago, the oceans still have the power to enchant and amaze us, and also to put us firmly in our place.  Why look to the stars for other signs of life when there is so much yet to be discovered on our own bountiful little world?

Film Synopsis

Imagine what it is like to be a creature of the sea, to race along at 10 knots within a school of tuna, to accompany dolphins in their wild charges through the marine depths, to swim alongside the great white shark...   Here is a film that offers these unique experiences, and more.  It provokes us to reflect on the impact that mankind is having on the natural world and shows us a world beyond our imagination, a world that is the ocean.