There are places scattered across the planet that, with vigour and hope, try to protect themselves from every adversity.
There are places where time seems to have stopped, suspended as if by magic through some mischievous device.
There are places where man remains the strangest animal, an odd biped in the eyes of the local fauna, often endemic.
There are places that seem to be the Earth’s living memory, true sanctuaries — sensitive, fragile, yet determined to preserve the original beauty of our planet. Life itself.
It is one of those places discovered with pleasure in Jacques Perrin’s film, Oceans.
Like the far north of the Arctic with the small island of Coburg, or the Cocos Islands off Costa Rica, or Fernandina Island at the far west of the Galapagos, or the Coronados island in the Sea of Cortez, Socorro Island off Mexico, Rurutu Island in French Polynesia, or Sainte Marie Island near Madagascar…
So many intimate places where animals gather, possessed of a freedom we envy them.
Eagles, cormorants, marine iguanas, seals, sea lions, walruses, sea spiders, fish of every kind, polar bears, sharks of all sorts, turtles and rays of every size.
Pure sensation. Pure emotion.
But the star of the film, the undisputed lead, remains the whale.
Blue whale, Bryde’s whale, humpback whale. Swimming, leaping, calling, nuzzling, playing — these marine giants, the largest animals the Earth has ever carried, light up the ocean night with their power, their fluidity, their gentleness and their elegance.
In this film, the whales are filmed masterfully by technicians eager to follow their movement, keen to track the dynamics of their travels, aware of and hungry for this privileged contact, little concerned with the passing of time, which fades away in their company.
Let us make the most, again and again, of these all-too-rare moments when the animal reveals itself with complete innocence and willingness — to the point where, for the man filming or watching it, it is no longer regarded as an animal but as a still little-known playmate, a neighbour from a different element, a fellow inhabitant of a shared planet.
[media id=2 width=600 height=400]
On the trail of the Jaguar of the Pantanal, Brazil
An encounter in India with His Majesty the Tiger
