Sunday 5 July 2015

The Big Blue / Le Grand Bleu (1988 Luc Besson)

A film as old as our relationship.

Begins beautifully in black and white Greece - the kid playing the young Enzo is fantastic. (In fact there's an argument for the opening section being better than the rest of the film.) Then picks up well in adulthood (Sicily, Peru, Taormina - The San Domenico hotel). Fantastic underwater scenes, Jean-Marc Barr clearly at home with terrific supporting cast of dolphins (love the moment where he frees the captive dolphin in to the sea - then later spends the night with it!)

Enzo a great character, perfectly realised by Jean Reno - Q thinks only he could have played it so well. Rosanna Arquette is the largely irrelevant female.

Eric Sera was certainly appreciated for his music as only his credit is outlined. (Insanely, the US release replaced the score with a new one by Bill Conti - which judging from this link was terrible - what were they thinking??) Carlo Varini shot it in Panavision with occasionally uncomfortably wide lenses.

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