Summing up Disneynature’s “Oceans” is really kind of a challenge. Given that this seven-years-in-the-making, four-years-of-principal-photography production literally circles the globe. Taking you from the North Pole down to the South Pole as well as making stops in all five of the world’s oceans as this epic documentary celebrates the beauty and mystery of the sea.
“But what are the true highlights of this Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud film?,” you ask. Well, it’s genuinely hard to beat this movie’s penultimate sequence. Where – off the coast of Guadalupe Island, Mexique – a man and a great white swim side-by-side for more than a minute in perfect harmony.
Copyright 2009 Gatalee Films – Pathe Production – Notro Films – France 2 Cinema – France 3 Cinema – JMH/TSR. All Rights Reserved
It’s shots like this that make you realize that – even though you may have seen spectacular underwater photography before (particularly if you caught “The Blue Planet,” that 8-part nature documentary that the BBC produced back in 2001) – you’ve never ever seen anything like Disneynature’s “Oceans.”
Take – for example – the sequence that was shot at the bottom of Melbourne Bay in Australia. Where you’re on the ocean floor as literally tens of thousands of spider crabs come marching across the screen and then prepare to do battle.
Copyright 2009 Gatalee Films – Pathe Production – Notro Films – France 2 Cinema – France 3 Cinema – JMH/TSR. All Rights Reserved
“How did the two Jacques ever get a shot like that?,” you query. Well, it’s not just the innovative technology that Perrin & Cluzaud provided their cinematographers with. These Academy Award-winning filmmakers devoted a full two years to preproduction on this documentary. Interviewing fishermen, tanker captains, environmentalists, deep-sea divers and marine biologists as they tried to come up with the best possible ways to illustrate the majesty and the power of the sea.
Out of the 480 hours of footage that was shot, some of the images that the two Jacques have chosen to include in this Disneynature film are really quite sweet. Like that walrus off of Cobburg Island in the Arctic who cuddles her pup just as a human mother might.
Copyright 2009 Gatalee Films – Pathe Production – Notro Films – France 2 Cinema – France 3 Cinema – JMH/TSR. All Rights Reserved
Or better yet – that footage that was shot in the Antarctic. Which shows a female Weddell seal coaxing her baby to come under the ice for the very first time.
Copyright 2009 Gatalee Films – Pathe Production – Notro Films – France 2 Cinema – France 3 Cinema – JMH/TSR. All Rights Reserved
Mind you, Perrin & Cluzaud don’t shy away from showing the crueler side to the sea. There’s one sequence in “Oceans” that’s almost certain to upset the smaller kids in the audience. Which first shows this nest full of green sea turtles hatching. And then – as these hatchlings scramble across the hot sand, desperate to reach the relative safety of the water – dozens of them are picked off by the hungry seabirds that wheel overhead.
Copyright 2009 Gatalee Films – Pathe Production – Notro Films – France 2 Cinema – France 3 Cinema – JMH/TSR. All Rights Reserved
But – in the end — the two Jacques bring a sense of balance to “Oceans.” As Pierce Brosnan (i.e. the film’s narrator) repeatedly reminds us, while the world’s five oceans are loaded with incredible beauty & bounty …
Copyright 2009 Gatalee Films – Pathe Production – Notro Films – France 2 Cinema – France 3 Cinema – JMH/TSR. All Rights Reserved
… they are also incredibly fragile. Especially when you consider all of the trash & chemical waste that mankind has poured into them over the past 100 years or so. Which is why we all now must make an effort to protect and preserve the seas as well as all the creatures who live there.
Copyright 2009 Gatalee Films – Pathe Production – Notro Films – France 2 Cinema – France 3 Cinema – JMH/TSR. All Rights Reserved
Thanks to Don Hahn & Kirk Wise’s input (these two WDAS veterans acted as executive producers on “Oceans.” Which means that Hahn & Wise worked with Perrin & Cluzaud to help shape the storyline of this documentary. Finding that slim narrative thread that connects all of this spectacular imagery), “Oceans” never once gets heavy handed. It’s a wonderfully informative and entertaining follow-up to the first film in the Disneynature series, “Earth.” Which is why — if you’re looking for a fun way to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Earth Day (which happens to be today) — you might want to consider taking your family to see this in-depth look at the depths.
If you do, make sure to stay through the closing credits. Not to hear Joe Jonas & Demi Lovato perform “Oceans” ‘ theme song, “Make a Wave,” mind you. But because the credit sequence reveals how those undersea cinematographers actually pulled off some of this documentary’s more impossible-looking shots.
Copyright 2009 Gatalee Films – Pathe Production – Notro Films – France 2 Cinema – France 3 Cinema – JMH/TSR. All Rights Reserved
For further information on Disneynature’s “Oceans,” please click on this link.