My entire knowledge of the filmography of Jacques Cousteau, outside of clips here and there, comes through pop cultural osmosis. When I was a young teenager I became an instant fan of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou by Wes Anderson which I watched together with my stepfather who was a lifelong fan of cult/alternative comedy and we laughed our asses off no matter how dry the material is presented. When a few years younger still, like countless children of the 90s I became a dedicated fan of Spongebob Squarepants and its zany, often surreal sense of humor which included a French-accented narrator in certain “2 Hours Later” or whatever cutaway gags that it is obvious tribute to the great aquatic documentarian. So I knew certain stylistic things or stereotypes, but that is about it before I decided to watch World Without Sun at midnight on a weekday.
This is the first documentary I’ve ever reviewed on here, so figuring the best way to go about it as I go along.
The most striking negative feature of it, which I instantly recognized from parody in The Life Aquatic, is how incredibly obviously and badly staged most of the scenes with humans are screen are. They look like they are in a low budget 50s industrial film they are so wooden and posed. There is a lot of charm to this though so I don’t want to say it’s all negative, there’s a kitsch appeal to that approach in modern times. The editing can be very stilted and also has a little bit of the industrial film vibe though there’s some very artful or funny edits scattered about.
I also really didn’t like how much of the film showed them actively manipulating the fish and not simply observing, catching them in nets or plastic containers. I know it certainly isn’t as bad as the whales and sharks Jacques killed on screen in his early appearances and he had become more of a real conservationist at this point but it is still just kind of a bummer seeing these deep water fish not having a good time in their natural environment.
Outside of those flaws though, I genuinely found this a nice way to kill some time. You can of course find much more amazing deep sea and underwater footage like anywhere on YouTube in 4K at the click of a button anymore, let alone on any of the nature-centric cable channels or endless background streaming content. However, you really have to appreciate the quality of the image and footage with the primitive equipment constantly being innovated by them that they have to work with, which this documentary does not shy away from showing you how it works behind the scenes. I love everybody chainsmoking cigarettes in a pressurized cabin underwater, I love how genuinely miserable and claustrophobic and dark they make the week two guys spent in the deep dive cabin seem which much of the human side of the film focuses on. The music is absolutely fantastic, just incredible and perfect for the moment at every step. The narration, of which I watched the English version instead of a subbed French which wasn’t available to me, was instantly iconic and charming and just a little bit corny from time to time but always a bit hypnotic.
I think to really enjoy this movie, you really have to appreciate the history and the craft and even inconsistencies of the era, but if like me that interests you there isn’t much here that isn’t enjoyable beyond messing with the fish in one way or another. Pure kitsch value, but high kitsch value. I’d say check it out.
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