The Silent World by Jacques-Yves Cousteau was The 1957 Winner of The Oscar for Best Documentary, it was also the Palme d’Or Winner in 1956 and it is one of The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movie Ever Made – you find notes on films from The NYT 1,000 and other lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

The Silent World by Jacques-Yves Cousteau was The 1957 Winner of The Oscar for Best Documentary, it was also the Palme d’Or Winner in 1956 and it is one of The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movie Ever Made – you find notes on films from The NYT 1,000 and other lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

8 out of 10

 

Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a pioneer of ocean exploration and a ‘celebrity’ when we were very young, we watched his documentaries with great interest and elation – they were aired on television under Ceausescu because there was nothing political about the seas, whales and fish, or at least commies did not mind it

 

The politics were in fact connected with the paramount duty to save the oceans, and the planet in general, drawing attention to the threats posed by humans to the life of various (if not all species) and we see striking images with the beauty of the under-water life, fish, plants, corals, but also the catastrophic side

Indeed, I was thinking that this pretty much a horror movie, just as it is one about life, nature, conservation, humans doing the good things and the awful, because there are scenes that cause intense emotions and I refer first to that poor cachalot whale that is killed and then eaten by sharks and we see it all

 

There is a baby cachalot whale, also known as sperm whale, which is grievously injured, so they decide to euthanize it, though I am not sure how they evaluate the condition, nevertheless, the process appears gruesome, first they use a spear and then the poor animal is attached to the ship and a gun is used to put a bullet in his head

‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’ https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/romeo-and-juliet-by-william-shakespeare.html that is from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare – incidentally, I am not ecstatic about Hamnet, one of the ‘best films’ of 2025, at least according to the many nominations

 

After the poor cachalot is killed, sharks arrive to feast on the carcass and then some of them are also killed, and I really do not see why…they mention that this species is the bitter enemy of the divers, but just for that, do they have to kill them, maybe there was some scientific purpose which was mentioned and I missed it

As it is, we must be thankful that Jacques -Yves Cousteau and his team have been among the first to speak about what humans do to the oceans and the planet in general; another episode of pure horror involved dynamite fishing, they show what happens when they use explosives, how just a few fish stay at the surface

 

Most are at the bottom, it is a massacre which makes so little, if any sense, but then instead of progressing, we move backwards, the US under their Orange Estupido leader has withdrawn from various ecological treaties, and he is one for using coal and other polluting energy sources…

At the end – merci Jacques Yves Cousteau

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