living, thinking and writing
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| PRACTICE living, thinking and writing |
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Sunday, August 08, 2004 The Grand Bleu When I was in college, I bought a punched cassette, the pirated music cassette confiscated by customs and mysteriously sold at the curb of the campus. The album is called ‘The Big Blue’, soundtrack of the movie with the same title. I never heard of that movie, not to mention the album, but the cover design seized my heart at the very moment I saw it. And boy, the music sounds like coming from another world, literally. In early 90s, while the reminiscence of disco was still fresh, what prevailed in China was pop/soft music from Taiwan and Hongkong, or the US; we never heard of any ‘new age’, the first encounter with Eric Serra’s music (he is the composer of almost all Luc Besson’s movies, remember the music in ‘fifth element’ and ‘the professional’? how cool are they!) was totally surreal. To me, electronic music often fell into a gaudy and shallow genre, especially when mingling with saxophone, but they sound deep and sophisticated in the Big Blue. From the music, you hear the natural call from the deep and the faraway, so calm and so determined, and above of all, inexplicably nostalgia. Our dorm was rested on the top of a hill overlooking the ocean, not even a mile away. At night, after the electricity cutoff, the anonymous lights on the ocean are flicking at the end of the sky, the music adds a mysterious yet titillating touch to the salty wind through and around the building, soothing my young and lonely heart. Then 10 years later, when I saw real dolphins the first time in the Sea world San Diego, the image of dolphin jumping out of water on the cassette cover and the magic music suddenlycame back to my mind, and I found the DVD in Netflix. Director’s cut is long, almost 3 hours, but you would not want it to end. I watched it twice, and believe me, you have to watch twice. The first time you will be too distracted by the spectacular cinematography and the music that could draws you into the deep sea. I don’t quite follow what happened above the ocean or who is who. It is very European movie after all, people wandering around and staring into the air for ever, Jean Reno smirks for no reason all the time, and the movie ends at such an unexpected moment that a Hollywood moviegoer will never prepare for ...But I don’t mind to watch it the second time for another run of surreal experience anyway, not to mention to have another look at Jean-Marc Barr’s dreamy eyes. And then I realize how sad the whole story is. Obsession to the impossible, the ultimate tragedy of mankind or you might called the glory of life, seems to me is the theme of the story. Enzo is dying for his obsession to beat Jacque in deep sea diving and he did lose his life to the sea at the end; Joanna gave up her career and American life dreaming of family life with Jacque, the man who doesn’t have human mind and heart, and she lost him to the ocean in the end; Jacque, obsessed with the mermaid(I think he believes Dolphin is a kind of mermaid) in the deep water and believed ‘it is better down there’, plunges himself into the dark abyss with no mercy to crying Joanna and the unborn child. In the last scene, he met a dolphin in the deep sea and he let go the diving device, following the mermaid to the unknown darkness, and the screen turns dark, the end. I heard that US edition added a happy ending to the movie and it was 40 minutes short. I saw the trailer and it sold the movie like a si-fi horror, I can’t imagine how it’s going to work out. But so far, the Big Blue has beaten ‘the profession’ and topped my list of Luc Besson movies. posted by lmeimei @3:28 PM| permanent link| | |
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