Deep Blue

It's a very nice feeling watching a documentary like this on the big screen. You can feel the overwhelming power of waves bursting against rocky coastlines and experience the vastness of the ocean.

"Deep Blue" takes you on a journey from the coast to the coral reefs, then to the icy lands of the (ant-)arctic, and finally down to the most fascinating part of this movie: the deepest depths of the ocean, where not a single beam of light shatters through.

Most scenes are greatly composed of very clear, sharp and absolutely stunning images harmonized with the orchestral music of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

In one very nice and humorous scene where you see hundreds of fat penguins shambling over a sheet of ice, I nearly got the impression, also induced through the music, watching the marching scene of Edoras citizens in "Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers". Might sound odd, but I guess I have a faible for "large" scenes with many actors moving on the big screen, supported by a big orchestra. There is another scene like this with little crawfish on the coast choreographed like a sports event.

But in "Deep Blue" you have no special effects. There are literally thousands of "actors" in some scenes. You watch birds falling from the sky, shooting into the waters, grabbing one fish out of a vast swarm. You watch penguins gaining speed under water, jumping out and finally (more or less) safely landing with their round bellies on the sheets of ice. And you're worried about little fish hiding under rocks when carnivore fishes arrive searching for food.

You might have seen most of the animals before, but when they take you some kilometers down you enter a completely different and very fascinating world, which I have never seen before in another documentary - at least not in this clarity.

Down there in this seemingly live threatening environment very, very odd and sometimes scary looking creatures are lingering around. Sometimes you wonder yourself if they just dropped you out of the documentary throwing you right into a science fiction movie.

There are tiny creatures, partly transparent, with moving light bars on their bodies pulsating in rainbow colors. There are little ones generating bright flashes to baffle their enemies. And, well, if you've seen "Finding Nemo" you might recognize the scary looking carnivore with a "light bulb" on his head attracting innocent little fishies.....

So... I rated this documentary 8/10. It's not perfect in my opinion. There is a narrator sometimes throwing in some sentences which are more or less describing the current scene. I think he speaks about 10-15 times in the whole movie. This goes well with the pace and the atmosphere (would be disturbed by too much speaking), but gives you nearly no information about the animals you see on screen. A tiny subtitle in one of the lower edges might have been great showing you the names of the creatures you're currently looking at.

Also I would have done the cutting in a slightly different way. Some scenes are perfect, just beautiful and overwhelming, where other scenes are very much like in the usual TV documentaries.

Overall, this movie is worth watching in the cinema if you have the opportunity to do so. Also, the more people learn to admire the wonders of the ocean, the more chances mankind may have to protect it in the future.

The beginning of this documentary is devoid of credits. We see dolphins swimming and leaping in the open water and sea birds diving directly into the ocean to snatch a fish. The narrator (Pierce Brosnan) says, "This is a world of constant jeopardy, an endless cycle of birth, death, and renewal." Powerful waves crash into the rocky coast, where the sea lions return to give birth, but unwary seals become prey to predators (the black and white colored killer whales) in the shallows at high tide. Then again, the whales themselves risk being stranded there.

More marine life is seen before the view shifts to the coral reefs, "a narrow band of sun-fed life only found in the shallows of the tropical seas." The skeletons of coral polyps – the smallest and most fragile of organisms – form the reef. The darkness is feeding time for some; the night-feeders with built-in sensors have no need of light. Fascinating and colorful sea creatures abound further below the ocean surface, but unfortunately most are not identified. There are poisonous jellyfish and manta rays. Just before the halfway mark of the film the scene moves to the Arctic (polar bears) and also Antarctic (penguins). In the Antarctic the temperature is seventy degrees below zero (-70°F) and the winds exceed one hundred miles per hour. The penguins gather speed in the cold waters before jumping out and landing on sheet ice. Meanwhile in the far north the polar bears search for nesting seals hidden in ice caves situated just below the surface. Thirty-ton gray whales travel six thousand miles to feed in the polar seas. After six hours of jostling, killer whales separate one unfortunate gray calf from its mother and move in when it is thoroughly exhausted.

From the surface of the ocean we next enter a subterranean world, the deepest underwater area on the planet and where surface light does not penetrate. Seven miles deep (the Marianas Trench), it is a mystery world of perpetual night. It is a sparsely explored netherworld of odd life forms (again unidentified). The only light emanates from the undersea creatures themselves. Light is used as a lure to attract prey or as a decoy to confuse them. Poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas and boiling water spew forth in some areas. Yet, even near those settings some life forms exist. At film's end we hear that there are only a few thousand blue whales left on earth. The blue whales are earth's largest creatures by far.

The narration is limited and the orchestral music appropriate. If you like nature documentaries, you will enjoy this one, although there are several lulls.

Water makes up most of the Earth and, unlike the surface ecosystems, it is the hardest for man to explore, inhabit or bulldoze. It is the closest thing to having a different planet, except right here on Earth. As such I was looking forward to watching this film because of the excellent footage of the many amazing creatures and ecosystems that ever improving technology allow us to get closer to. I'm not really one for nature programmes so maybe that is why I was extra impressed by the film – because such stuff has not become "ordinary" to me. At the start of the film I must admit that I was watching the "ordinary"; whales, crabs and seals fitted into that category to me but once the camera went deeper into the oceans it only became more and more fascinating with such weird and wonderful creatures on display.

This goes for the shallower depths as well, as fish, whales, sharks etc are all very well presented and gorgeous to watch. Indeed that is the strength of the film – the beauty of it. It is fascinating to watch and the expertise in filming shines through from start to finish. However it is the appreciation of the view where the film is weak. Gambon's narration is sparse and even but it only occasionally gives out nuggets of information. I didn't expect detail like David Attenborough would give but it could have done with something more to compliment the visuals. The music covers the lack of narration and generally the score is well pitched to support the air of wonder or pace to the film.

Overall this is a great visual treat, even if it is mostly going to be seen on the small screen. It all looks impressive and is fascinating but a bit more narration and detail would have been useful. Best viewed as a visual experience or as an entry into the wider genre of nature programmes.

Liked "Winged Migration" and "Microcosmos," "Deep Blue" is a big-screen nature documentary patiently filmed over a period of years. As "Winged Migration" concentrated on the creatures of the air, so "Deep Blue" focuses on creatures of the sea. Reminding us how little we have explored the liquid space of our own oceans, the images here can be beautiful and graceful (dolphins playing in the surf), humorous (a mass of crabs laying eggs on the sand) as well as grim and deadly (killer whales attacking and eating seal pups). The moments of beauty are poignant indeed, and "Deep Blue" has it's share of "wow" moments. It divides itself into various themes; the shallows, the shoreline, the open seas, the polar seas, and the deep. The latter is shot near the deepest places on earth, and several creatures never before photographed are displayed in all their bioluminescent glory. The penguins shooting out of the ocean like biological missiles is quite amazing, and the feeding frenzy of the sharks is terrifying. Michael Gambon's narration is rarely intrusive, but it isn't as informative as I would have liked; they could have used some graphics to at least give you an idea of what creatures you were seeing, or where the shots were located. Still, this is a beautiful film, much of which was filmed for the "Blue Planet" BBC series. It looks frightfully gorgeous on the big screen, although parents should be warned that the seal pup death scenes can be terrifying to younger or more sensitive viewers.

I had the opportunity to watch this movie during the Seattle International Film Festival, and I was amazed. I haven't seen the documentary series "Deep Blue Sea" on which it was based, so I cannot comment on how the film compares to that series. What I can say is for any of you who are interested in animal behavior above and below the ocean's surface, you will be amazed. This film has few interruptions between wonderfully paced and edited clips of animal behavior. While I had seen almost all of the animals and plant life that appear in this movie before, this gave me a new and thrilling opportunity to see their lives as the animals themselves do. You hear their voices and experience their emotions. The soundtrack kept me emotionally captivated for the entire 90 minute run time. The filmmakers don't try to narrate the behavior, but let you experience it first hand, to a thrilling effect.

However, this movie is not for the faint of heart. The filmmakers spare no detail in showing close up the threats posed to smaller sea life by larger and more voracious variations of life. With that in mind, I recommend keeping young children away from this movie. The children sitting a few rows in front of me in the theater gasped and held onto their parents during the violent scenes in the film.

If you do see this movie, make a point to do it on the biggest screen you can find, and sit as close as you can.