Atlantis (1991)
1991, Columbia (DVD). Directed by Luc Besson. Brief French narration with subtitles.
Decent Films Ratings
Overall
Recommendability |
?A- |
Artistic/
Entertainment Value |
? |
Moral/Spiritual
Value (+4/-4) |
?
+0 |
Age
Appropriateness |
?Kids & Up |
External Ratings
Content advisory: Documentary footage of a shark feeding frenzy and sea animals mating should not pose an obstacle to most children.
A National Catholic Register "Video/DVD Picks"
capsule review.
By Steven D. Greydanus
While making his 1988 aquatic feature The
Big Blue, director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element)
became fascinated with the sea and wanted to spend an entire film
simply exploring it. He then spent two years capturing the
extraordinary footage for Atlantis, a pure documentary
that eschews educational Discovery Channel narration in favor of
sheer wonder at the exotic, mysterious world under the sea.
Loosely structured into thematic "chapters" such as "light,"
"rhythm," and "grace," accompanied by an ecclectic Eric Serra
score, Atlantis is a documentary Fantasia, a poetic marriage of image
and music (though the score, apart from an aria from Bellini’s
La Sonnambula, lacks the pedigree of Disney’s
masterpiece). Marred only by a brief opening voiceover, which
muses pretentiously about man’s evolutionary origins in the
ocean, Besson’s otherwise wordless film lets the beauty of the
undersea world speak for itself.
No matter how many ocean documentaries you’ve seen, Besson’s
film will show you things you’ve never seen before — and things
well worth seeing again. The alien majesty of a giant octopus in
his seaweed-forest home off the coast of Vancouver. The
mist-shrouded mountain landscape and cathedral-like towers of the
Great Barrier Reef. The submarine-like passing of an orca. The
hypnotic undulations of the striped-sweater sea snake. The
implacable, battle-scarred visage of an Australian great white.
The dirigible-like bulk and mailbox-slot mouth of the whale
shark. The bovine placidity of a Florida manatee, whose comically
graceful bulk evokes the hippo ballerinas of Fantasia. The
nautilus, which defies description or comparison. It’s all here
in this unparalleled look at a fascinating world.
Note: Be sure to catch the closing credits, which put
identifying captions to some of the film’s more memorable
images.
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