In honor of Earth Day, Disney releases a documentary with a porpoise. It also has sharks, whales, seals and an amazing array of underwater vertebrates and invertebrates of much lesser size, too.
As the company’s nature division did with the film “Earth” last year at this time, today’s “Oceans” captures the majestic beauty of the planet and the recognizable humanity of our nonhuman fellow residents here. Why? The porpoise and the purpose? It obviously exists to raise our awareness the next time we litter or slather tartar sauce on a fried critter that might have been cruelly harvested.
Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud direct this spectacularly photographed, French-produced project. It’s hard to imagine how their camera operators were even able to get so up-close and personal with so many dangerous and illusive sea stars.
‘Oceans’
3 out of 5 Stars
Narration: Pierce Brosnan
Directors: Jacques Perrin, Jacques Cluzaud
Rated G
Running Time: 87 minutes
The first hour of the film is devoted to reveling in the diversity and lifestyles of the fish-eat-fish world that teems beneath the waves: armies of hundreds of clashing spider crabs off the coast of Australia; clever orcas making hors d’oeuvres out of cuddly sea lions on the water’s edge in Africa; a spontaneous feeding frenzy of dozens of seagulls and dolphins gorging on undulating schools of sardines miles offshore; all manner of oddly shaped mollusks, crustaceans and echinoderms in clever disguises interacting night and day on the sandy ocean floor.
It’s a kaleidoscopic, almost hypnotic display — enhanced by the sometimes soothing, sometimes witty musical choices of score composer Bruno Coulais and Pierce Brosnan’s unobtrusive voice-over narration. But the script offers too little explanation for the curious fauna behaviors being depicted. Why do those spider crabs clash in such great numbers, anyway? In this broad-brush treatment of an enormous topic, there is little “left brain” data or statistics.
In the documentary’s last half-hour, we get pulled out of marine heaven with sad footage of commercial fishing nets catching and killing off species that people don’t even eat. From satellite imagery, we see streams of pollution flowing from tributaries into the vast blue home of all of the creatures we have just come to love.
Effective propaganda? You betcha. But however you feel politically about environmental issues, you don’t have to be a so-called “tree hugger” to be moved by “Oceans.” Though not a definitive masterwork on the subject, it’s a gorgeous, evocative fish story.
