Review: Ocean with David Attenborough – Water wonderful world

Directed by Colin Butfield, Toby Nowlan, and Keith Scholey
Featuring David Attenborough

7/10

It may be typical for a David Attenborough nature documentary, but this is a visual feast. Each and every shot of all these wondrous underwater creatures is so perfectly shot to bring out the most beauty and awe from these animals. Yet this stunning imagery unfortunately doesn’t last for too long. Although there’s plenty of this life under the sea, Ocean then turns its sights to the devastated areas of the world where fisheries literally rip up the ocean floor to grab as much seafood as possible. This is what a good portion of the film’s second half looks like: the depressingly bare and grey ocean floor.

The doco seems to revel in this aesthetic of hopeless misery, fetishising this devastated, lifeless ocean. The point comes across quickly, as most people have to be aware of how this has been increasingly happening to oceans. But the point really gets hammered in, over and over, and when only a little amount of information is revealed, it’s quite broad and vague with no exact science or findings made known.

Ocean ends on an optimistic note, suggesting the sea life can rebuild and reflourish much quicker than its land counterpart. There’s the strong feeling that Ocean even regards itself as an actual world-changing film, with the way it suggests we balance the ocean ecosystem. But then again, there’s likely to have already been many more documentaries that aren’t as good-looking but feature more information that have paved quite a way for it. This is certainly a documentary with an important message, and although it’s one worth reiterating, it is certainly overdone here.

DAVID MORGAN-BROWN