Film Océans about marine life

From Wikipedia:

Oceans is a 2010 French-American nature documentary film by Jacques Perrin …

Budgeted at 50 million Euros ($66,575,00), it was filmed in over 50 different places and took four years to film.

The movie is a high-quality documentary featuring ocean animals. It reflects the need to respect nature and demonstrates negative aspects of human activity on animals.

This is a film of very beautiful images. Of crustaceans and jellyfish. Of big whale sharks and small clownfish. Of frigatebirds and gannets, flying and diving. Of Galapagos marine iguanas, baby sea turtles hatching and adult turtles swimming. Of walruses, dolphins, humpbacks, and other whales. Of the force of the sea itself during storms.

The film also mentions some of the grave problems which human society as it is now brings to marine life. From climate change to long-line fishing killing animals as bycatch; to shark fin fishing, where finless but still living sharks are thrown back into the ocean to die a cruel death. The film does not mention the roles of industry and banking, however (see later in this review).

The images are joined together by relatively few spoken comments. This may be a weak point as many viewers will not know all the animal species in the movie, and hardly one of them is introduced by name. It may be a strong point as well, as it enables the viewers to concentrate more on the imagery.

Finally, a real weak point in this fine film. More or less the same weak point which I have noted earlier in this blog while reviewing the beautiful film about nature Earth. Then, I criticized that right at the start of the film there was propaganda for movie sponsor, and polluting corporation, Ford.

Among the first images of the film Océans are the names of the sponsors. They include, as far I know, at least two rather problematic ones: Crédit Agricole and Total.

The big oil corporation Total has a record of pollution, like in a disaster at the French west coast (not mentioning other oil corporations like BP polluting the marine life of the Gulf of Mexico right now).

The French bank Crédit Agricole also does not have a good ecological record. According to This French Life:

Crédit Agricole accused of ‘greenwash’ with Connery ad

By Craig McGinty on Feb 1, 2010 in Current Affairs.

LATE last year I noticed an advert from Crédit Agricole featuring Sean Connery, promoting the banks green credentials.

Well, environmental campaigners in France are far from happy with the publicity campaign, saying that the bank has investments in fossil-fuel businesses and defence industries.

The Times website says that France Nature Environnement are compiling a dossier on the bank’s activities to submit to France’s advertising standards board.

While Friends of the Earth France said the advertisement was ‘absolutely the worst case of greenwash we’ve ever seen’.

Here is about a lost Crédit Agricole court case in Uruguay about environmental damage.

April 2010. Using DNA samples and images from Earth-orbiting satellites, conservationists from Columbia University, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the American Museum of Natural History, and Fundación AquaMarina, are gathering new insights about the Franciscana-a poorly known coastal dolphin species of eastern South America-in an effort to understand populations and conserve them: here.

Many new species of jellyfish discovered in Australia: here.

VIENNA, Aug 14, 2010 (Tierramérica) – What lives in the world’s oceans? Crabs mostly, according to the Census of Marine Life, a 10-year research effort: here.

ScienceShot: Flying Fish Match Birds at Gliding: here.

Thousands of Dead Crabs Litter England’s Beaches: here.

Jellyfish are ecological vampires – their waste slime is generally inedible: here.

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