Blue is an Australian documentary that’s a love letter to the world’s oceans–as well as a warning about what we’re doing to them. Via the Sydney Morning Herald:
Directed by the Australian scientist Karina Holden, Blue concentrates on the ocean, with a series of segments – filmed mainly in Australia and South East Asia – that dwell on the disastrous impact of pollution, global warming and over-fishing.
Voiceover narration is supplied by various conservationists and other concerned citizens; though the script, which has its share of purple passages, is credited solely to Holden.
Most of the segments follow the same pattern: starting out with the beauty of nature, then showing it despoiled. Shark fins lopped off; seabirds caught in plastic; bleached coral reefs, like abandoned bones. These are images seemingly meant to induce the opposite of pleasure; though Ash Gibson Greig’s soothing score lets us experience them as grimly beautiful in their own way.
One of the best sequences reminds us that aquatic filmmaking has a history of its own: an encounter with 81-year-old shark expert Valerie Taylor whose documentaries – made with her husband Ron from the 1960s onward – have found several generations of fans. Today’s oceans are still beautiful, she says, but with marine life depleted and diversity vastly reduced, they’re nothing like those she explored in her younger days.