The Life Aquatic

[Jeff]

Where's the love, guys?

I just saw the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and while it is not perfect--I wish that Anderson would take his tongue out of his cheek a little bit more (what is wrong with untransmuted pain, anyway?)--it is wonderful on many levels. I would recommend this film to you all. It reminds me a little of I Heart Huckabees and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. If this is what thoughtful filmmakers want to do these days, I will be very entertained.

Jeff

PS Here is a nice review: www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jan2005/aqua-j08.shtml

PPS Adam, you can read and like the review without drinking the KoolAid.

[ryan]

Glad you liked "The Life Aquatic," Jeff. I saw it a few months ago when it was playing in Tulsa. I'd been really looking forward to it, because "The Royal Tenenbaums" was so great, and is one of the only movies I can honestly call a "touching black comedy." Such a strange and funny and sad film was Tenenbaums.

The Life Aquatic was a very good film on many levels, but I have to admit that I found it very confusing. Not in the narrative sense, but in the emotional sense, and in the sense that I often found myself scratching my head, thinking, "What the hell is Anderson trying to do here?"

I think part of the reason I had a hard time warming-up to the film was due to the frank and immediate nature of the opening scene, which recounts on grainy 16mm film the death of Zissou's partner Esteban. Something about that opening scene really got to me. Bill Murray's red and crazy eyes. The muted voices of concern among his crewmates, as they whisper that he's gone mad from too little oxygen. Something about the scene seemed very dire, and it really got to me. That, compounded with the fact that nobody believed Zissou's story about the Jaguar Shark, left me with a sense of unease that undermined all the absurdist comedy that was to follow.

After the movie was over, I wondered if Anderson had really meant it to be funny? I described the movie to at least one person as "a heartsickening tragedy painted in the colors of comedy." Perhaps, I thought, Anderson had intended to make a very painful film, in which the protagonist's agony is only deepened by the bright, colorful and whimsical world around him. Whether or not that was his intention, that's the film I saw. It was a triumph of irony, if there is such a thing. The film really struck a weird chord in me. I was depressed for at least a day afterward.

And yet, the film was fascinating enough that I admit I'd like to see it again. If you can consider that a recommendation, then the film has mine. If not, then it doesn't. It's one of the few films I've ever seen which still leaves me puzzled, months later.