A miraculously photographed showcase of some of the sea’s least seen and most incredible specimens, this is an immersive cinema experience to be relished while you have the chance on the big screen.
This is not just another world, it's an alien universe, and we are privileged to get a look inside.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2010
Oceans 2009
Océans
A miraculously photographed showcase of some of the seven seas’ least seen and most incredible specimens, Oceans is an immersive cinema experience to be relished while you have the chance on the giant screen.
“In Oceans, a new generation of digital cameras have been used to capture the spindly, slithery, downright otherworldly creatures that roam the ocean floor, and those cameras don’t just bring you right up close. They capture, as never before, the literal, tactile texture of all those elegant sci-fi beings – the palpitating softness of a giant jellyfish, the mattress-like belly of a blue whale (the single largest animal in the history of the world), the crinkly body of a ray so svelte and multicolored it looks like a rippling Hermès scarf.
‘Down here,’ intones the film’s narrator, Pierce Brosnan, ‘it’s like nature has given anything a try,’ and the movie keeps astonishing you with the truth of that. Just when you’re certain that you’ve gawked at the oddest life-form that two million years of evolution has ever coughed up, Oceans will dazzle you with something even stranger: a crustacean that resembles a giant surreally spiky insect, a stonefish that’s literally like a rock that moves, or a good old cuttlefish, which has a lethal food-grabber that shoots out of its maw like something from Alien VII.” — Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
“Oceans is a jaw-dropper as a visual travelogue – even its anthropomorphic indulgences (an ocean floor is turned into a rough neighborhood, complete with trespassers and shy weirdos) are winning.” — Michelle Orange, Village Voice