Canyousea has seen “Oceans”!

Watching “Oceans” is like being a fish among fish. Jacques Perrin, the maker of “Microcosmos” and “Winged Migration,” takes us this time into the great blue unknown. Like a modern-day adventurer, the filmmaker plunges his camera deep into the seas and oceans of the entire planet to reveal to us the wealth and diversity of marine life. The goal is to raise people’s awareness of the beauty of a world that is being increasingly distressed by man.

A larger-than-life opera

The ocean? What is it? That question cannot be answered without plunging into the environment of all the different marine species. Guided by the amazing images of the film crew, the viewer discovers an immense ballet in all its different acts and scenes. The frenzy of the Cape gannets is in contrast to the grace of the humpback whales. The cavalcade of the spinner dolphins takes your breath away, while the silent procession of the great white shark has you holding it in. In pace with Bruno Coulais’s music, the documentary very rapidly turns into a larger-than-life opera.

Holding up a mirror to mankind

But “Oceans” also marks minds through its capacity to put we humans face to face with a world that strangely resembles us. It’s impossible not to be moved by the mother walrus teaching her baby to swim while gently cradling him. Is there anyone who doesn’t have a smile on their face when watching the mantis shrimp cleaning up in front of its shelter and seeing off curious intruders? And then there are the images that, by making us witnesses to the death of a blue shark whose fin and tail have been cut off, force us to think about man’s stupidity and cruelty.

“Oceans,” which is the result of four years of filming, is a true hymn to the sea—one that deserves to be discovered rapidly.

Steven Lambert