Oceans (2010) Starring: Pierce Brosnan Director: Jacques Perrin, Jacques Cluzaud "To really know what the ocean is, you have to see it; you have to hear it; you have to taste it; you have to feel its power. To really know what the ocean is, you have to live it." Oceans is the latest film adopted by Disneynature. The film takes us over and under the ocean, just under the surface and along the ocean floor, in tropical waters and near the poles. We see microscopic urchin eggs and the great leviathan blue whale. We see many amazing and beautiful living creatures and the raw power of a stormy sea. Oceans is directed by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud, who previously teamed up on the wonderful avian film, "Winged Migration." Like that film, Oceans puts us in the midst of an environment that is in some ways very close, but also extremely alien to our lives. In Winged Migration we soared along with various kinds of birds. The technology that allowed such nearness was a key part of the success of that film. Here too technology has allowed the filmmakers to take viewers "up close and personal" with a wide range of sea life. The high-def cinematography allows us to see some of the astonishing beauty that lives in the seas. But that technology is really only a tool that the filmmakers used to create a work that is at its core a meditation. The pace at which the beauty unfolds before us, the score and the narration combine to provide a contemplative environment. The opening of the film, asking what the ocean is, sets the tone. We are told that this experience will not be so much scientific as a subjective and emotive exploration. By the time the first half hour of the film has past, viewers may well feel a strange combination of calm and awe. The middle third of the film veers away from this meditative character just a bit. It is here that some of the more odd and humorous creatures are encountered, like a great battle between crab armies on the ocean floor. This is the entertaining section of the film (if just beauty and power are not entertainment enough for you). But in time, the film slowly starts back into its meditation—now thinking a bit about our relationship with the ocean. We have to consider if humanity has harmed some of this immense environment through pollution or abuse. Still, we aren't preached to about it, merely guided in our meditation to think about how our actions affect all these creatures we have been seeing. While this film is meditative, it is not always peaceful. It is, after all, a wildlife film. Many of the animals we see survive by eating the other animals we see. There is a lot of death. Some may seem fairly mild, as when a school of sardines is decimated by hungry dolphins, birds, sharks, and whales all at the same time. But when great whites or orcas take seals, it seems much more violent. That is the natural world. But even this holds us in awe of the power and the intricate balance that exists in this watery world.
