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Deep Blue (Optimum Home Entertainment). DVD
Deep Blue (Optimum Home Entertainment). DVD
If you ever had a moment's doubt about why you go diving, a product guaranteed to lay those doubts to rest is the double DVD of Deep Blue, the big-screen offshoot of the BBC's Blue Planet series.
???? Deep Blue takes the most ravishing sequences (with others not before seen) from the 7000 hours of footage shot for the TV series. It presents them in a way that puts the accent less on education, more on celebrating the wonder of the oceans.
???? David Attenborough's narration is replaced by an understated commentary by actor Michael Gambon (scripted, incidentally, by Tim Ecott, who writes elsewhere in this Review section).
???? Way up in the mix is George Fenton's spine-tingling score, which is played by the Berlin Philharmonic and is almost worth the price of the DVD alone.
???? The result is a raw emotional spectacle. Divers usually experience wildlife on a rather more modest scale - these are rare encounters and my spine is still tingling.
???? You are probably already familiar with many of the individual sequences - the Sardine Run, the tuna/marlin/sei whale/baitball feast; orcas taking sea-lion pups at the water's edge, as others hunt down a grey whale calf; the polar bear v the beluga whales; sharks feeding by night; projectile emperor penguins; and the deep-sea 'black smokers' among others.
???? Comical crabs and chilled-out jellyfish help to relieve the tension, and this 90-minute visual feast is packaged with a wealth of 'how did they do that?' material - the 50-minute The Making of Deep Blue, extensive directors' commentaries from Alastair Fothergill and Andy Byatt, and various other goodies. There's no excuse for missing this DVD off your Christmas list.
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Deep Blue (Optimum Home Entertainment). DVD, ?19.99. Also on video, ?9.99.
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