Tuesday 24 February 2004

Continuing the reviews, on Saturday I saw La Planète Bleue. My research, before and after seeing the film, indicates that it is a French language movie adaptation of a BBC-made, David-Attenborough-voiced, 8-episode series originally called The Blue Planet. I think, in fact, that I may even have seen a little of the series on TV in Australia, many moons ago. One wway or another, I think knowing this had a significant effect on my enjoyment of the film. It was certainly nice, with lots of lovely slow-motion footage of sea-creatures both familiar (dolphins, sharks, orcas, penguins), and less familiar (deep-sea things that look like bad 80s computer graphics demos). It may have just been that I didn't really understand the French voice-over, or it may have been that I knew I was missing the full story, but the structure of the film felt to me like it had been chopped together. Just when I was getting into the orcas, they went away, and there were parts of the penguin story that went untold, I thought. I also missed David Attenborough's voice. Crusty and old though it is these days, its just not a BBC nature documentary without it. Still, as eye candy goes, not a bad film.

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