| Product: |
The Big Blue (DVD) |
| Date: |
22/10/00 (326 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Stunning cinematography, music, locations
Disadvantages: The length, if you don't like the film!
Director Luc Besson's The Big Blue,(Le Grand Bleu) has been my all time favourite film, since I saw it in Brittany in the late 80's. I didn't quite know what to expect on that beautiful summer's evening in August when we queued for the late showing at the little cinema in La Baule, a small resort on the Cote Sauvage in Southern Brittany.
But from the moment the film began I was spellbound and began to understand why the cinema was packed and why the film was fast becoming a cult film in France.
The story is loosely based on the life of real life free diver Jacques Mayol, played by the incredibly attractive Jean Marc Barr, and is woven around the almost spiritual link between Jacques and his fascination and affinity with the sea and his "family", the dolphins swimming in the 'big blue'.
The film opens in Greece in 1965, where two boys growing up in a small coastal village, Jacques and his friend Enzo, engage in friendly rivalry around their budding diving skills. When Jacques father is killed in a tragic diving accident, Jacques goes to join his mother in America and the two friends are not to meet up again for many years.
The film then moves to Peru in 1984, where the naive and childlike man that Jacques has become, meets Johanna, (Rosanna Arquette, of Desperately Seeking Susan and New York Stories fame), who is an insurance underwriter. Johanna has travelled through the Andes to Peru to check out the loss of a truck under the ice, and meets Jacques who is engaged in dangerous diving experiments below the broken ice of the lake. Totally fascinated by him, she follows him from Peru to a free diving competition in Sicily where he is competing against his childhood friend,Enzo.
The competition has attracted the best free divers from around the world - *( Free divers use no equipment and compete to see who can dive the deepest before needing to come up for air.)
The two fri
ends succeed by a method of controlling their heart rate and breathing which allows them to descend to record breaking depths.
But while Jacques is in it purely for his spiritual affinity with and love for the sea, Enzo is driven by the danger and excitement of the competition. He is aware that the only other diver in the world who can take his World Champion title, is Jacques, and wants to prove once and for all that he (Enzo) is the true champion.
The story emphasis both the rivalry and friendship between Jacques and Enzo,(the latter played by the wonderful Jean Reno of Nikita, Leon and The Professional, amongst others), and the passion between Johanna and Jacques who, because of his increasing obsession with the world beneath the Big Blue, finds himself somehow unable to totally commit to a relationship with her.
This a magical film with a slightly surreal quality, mainly due to the portrayl of Jacques by Jean Marc Barr, at that time, a new sensation in French cinema.
It is Luc Bessons's third film and his first foray into an english language film. You will, no doubt, recognise his other film successes, Le Dernier Combat, Nikita, The Professional, Subway, all enjoyable films in their own right, but for me, The Big Blue is in a class of its own.
The stunning widescreen cinematography, film locations and intense musical score by Eric Serra, enhance an absolutely wonderful movie, a movie which is a mixture of fact and fable. The filming of Jacques with the dolphins is endearing and absolutely wonderful.
Twelve years on and the film continues to have a cult following in Europe. I saw it again at London's National Film Theatre; it really is worth trying to catch it on a large, wide screen.
For some inexplicable reason, there were several versions of this film, of different lengths and endings. These shortened versions had essential scenes cut from the middle of the film which rendered the film
slightly puzzling. Then in 1994, Fox Video issued The Big Blue - Version Longue on videotape in the UK. This is a 168 minute 'extended cut' with all of the footage restored. The film has recently been re-released on DVD by Columbia, a "director's cut" - with very mixed reports on its quality.
I was lucky enough to find The Fox Video widescreen limited edition VHF copy, which is stunning. Now I'm saving for the right wide screen TV to watch it on!
I do hope I have persuaded you to go and find this film somewhere, (I'm sure Tower Records stock it, or you could wait to see if they show it somewhere.) Whatever you decide, you won't regret it!
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