I've finally got around to watching again Le Grand Bleu (The Big Blue). It's a film I've long been meaning to watch in a relatively sober state, becuase it was recommended to me by my University friend Henry Bell. I first saw it round his place, and thought a lot of it, although I was too off my head to fully appreciate it. I've since found it in HMV going cheap, so I've been able to watch it again.
(By the way: Henry, if you happen to see this, drop me a mail next time you're back in blighty. I heard you were in 日本 these days, which sounds cool.)
Le Grand Bleu was released in 1988, and directed by Luc Besson. I haven't been particularly in to french films, and I don't know the lingo, but the few other things I've seen by Besson (La Femme Nikita and Léon) have convinced me that he's well worth watching.
It's a film about free divers—mad blokes who like to dive very deep in the ocean without an aqualung. There's lots of stuff about dolphins, for example here's Jacques meeting a dolphin chum at the end:
The infamous Jean Reno pops up as Enzo, the champion free-diver and general Italian jock:
“Mamma Mia!”
It's a beautiful film. The only problem I had with the DVD was that if you want to watch it in French with the English subtitles (I hate watching foreign films dubbed) you have to use the “English for the blind” version, which carefully points out that people have sighed, or clapped, or whatever.
Hmmm, after ignoring the French language for so many years I was quite surprised that I could pick out a few words of this stuff. Mainly the words they borrowed from English or vice-versa. That's probably also the only reason I can understand the odd word of Japanese…