Oceans

I took the old man and the old lady to the movies yesterday. Our choices were limited. We don't see anything with lots of explosions or violence. The old man refuses to see anything animated and most sci-fi is out. We see a lot of coming attraction trailers and the constant refrain is, "Remind me to miss that one." I told the old man I really wanted to see this nature film and he was fine with it.

First, let me talk about production values. The film was breathtakingly beautiful. Pierce Brosnan narrated and the music was lovely. It is pretty hard to make a comprehensive movie about the oceans of this world in 90 minutes, though. And after awhile it got quite soporific because there wasn't enough contrast. Pierce was always calm and erudite, the music was all of a key and for the most part the film was blue, blue, blue. The old man kept nodding off. At one point he woke up and said he did not want fish for dinner.

The memorable parts were different. Close-ups of amazing looking fish and animals kept our attention, especially when camouflaged fish would hunt. The most powerful image that persists is the very short one of man-made pollution. The sight of miles of plastic bottles and trash as seen from below was powerful, but the one that got my parents attention the most showed a shopping cart and detritus on the ocean floor. That scene was not blue, it was brown and dirty and ugly. My family have never been scuba diving or whale watching, and we don't raise tropical fish. We have been to the grocery store and the image of the cart hit home. We could relate to that and it made us ashamed for the actions of our species.

Another memorable scene showed two armies of spider crabs attacking. Suddenly hundreds and hundreds of these small creatures approach the same territory from different sides and climb all over each other. It was as stupid a battle tactic as I have ever seen. The parallels with humans could not be missed.

As I watched scene after scene of the beauty of our oceans unfold I made two goals for myself. I want to save money and go on a whale watching trip and also learn to scuba dive. I want to go under the sea and see the wonders of our ocean. Yah mon, Jamaica in January watching the pretty fishes sounds good to me. I'd better get a job.