First let me give you the film details :

The Big Blue – Le Grand Bleu
2h35 (long version)
Directed by : Luc Besson (Subway, Leon, 5th Element)
Starring :
- Jean-Marc Barr
- Jean Reno
- Rosanna Arquette

Music by : Eric Serra

Certificate 15 due to some scenes of sexual nature.

This movie is available on DVD in all good stores best I have found :
- Sainsbury : £6.99 including p&P
- ChoiceDirect :£5.09 including p&p

Before I start this review, I have put this movie under the cult section, and believe me, I can argue this point for a long time.

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The Story
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The movie starts in black and white, we are on a small mediterranean island, we are following a young boy walking on the top of a cliff.

Jacques Mayol (Eugene Guerre-Berthelot) is a young Frenchman living in on a Greek Island with his dad and uncle. His dad is a sponge harvester. He dives and harvest sponges from rocks. The whole family lives in a small house perched on a cliff, they depend exclusively on Jacques’ dad for survival.
On the same small island lives Enzo Molinari. Enzo is an Italian bully with his brother Roberto always on trawl. Both child share the same passion for diving, though Enzo being the bigger of the two, always seem to be able to impress the gallery when the occasion presents itself. Nevertheless, the children are friends.

One day, while working, Jacques’ father has a diving accident. Jacques and his uncle do everything to help him to no avail, his father dies. Enzo fishing nearby witness the accident.

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We are now in colours, we are in Sicily in 1988. Blue sea, a man is running down the hill screaming ‘Ayuto’ – help me !
The man goes to speak to Enzo (Jean Reno), now a man.
A diver is stucked inside a wrecked boat, Enzo is the world champion of freediving, he is the only one who can save him. A deal is strucked with the insurance company the diver works for and Enzo dives to save him.

With the money, Enzo decides to repaint his car – battered Fiat – buy a few clothes and bits and pieces for the family and… found the Frenchman as he calls him.. Jacques Mayol.

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We are now in South America, in Peru more exactly, around the same time. Johana (Rosanna Arquette) a young insurance evaluator from NewYork is travelling by train to a remote scientific outpost in the middle of the Andes. There see meets a strange young man who free dives in a frozen lake for fun it seems. He is being monitored by Doctor Lawrence who is doing research in the field of free diving and human possibilities compared to aquatic mammals. Johana falls in love with that strange creature right there and then.

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We are in the Riviera with Jacques Mayol (Jean-Marc Barr). After his trip to the Andes, he returns home to Antibes. First thing he does is going to visit his ‘family’ 2 dolphins called Clown and Djarjeling, he has brought them a present from his trip.

Jacques is once again working for scientist one day, swimming the length of a swimming pool underwater, when his eye lands on a pendant, a gold coin Enzo and him disputed all these years ago on the Greek Island. Enzo has come to ask Jacques to participate to the next Free Diving World Championship which will be held in Enzo’s home town, Taormina.

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My review
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The film is 2h30 long so I won’t bore you with a full 2h30 description of it.
The movie is focused on the interwoven stories of 4 characters, Johana, Jacques, Enzo and… the sea. It is a story of Friendship, Love, Competition, Brotherhood and Respect. And the uppercase letters were put there on purpose. It has some very funny moments – Enzo eating pasta at a restaurant – and not so funny moment – Jacques losing his dad.
I will not divulgue anymore of the story so to entice you to watch it, however I have now seen it countless times and do not think I will ever get bored of it. I will just warn you first that the end will let you hanging a little bit. And for the emotional among us, get that kleenex box close to hand, you will need it, were you butch male, flissy female or a combination.

Jean-Marc Barr is excellent in the role of a rather supernatural being lacking social skills to the point that he is more comfortable with dolphins than with humans. Jacques’ diving skills are closer to sea mammals than those of humans and he is fully aware of that. Though Jacques is rather shy and does not ‘show off’ his skills that easily. However the other side of the coin is that Jacques has not yet qualified in human emotions, everything with him relates to the sea, human kind are strange beings in his view, in the sea he feels at home, on Earth is is an alien.

Rosanna Arquette has probably the easiest role of all 3 human roles. Johana is this City girl who falls in love with the wrong guy and has to compete against a fearsome adversary.. the sea. Her character goes through emotional ups and downs put always succeed in keeping it together.. for the love of one man.

Jean Reno is gigantic impersonating a Sicilian. His accent is truer than true. He has the right gusto, ego, presence and rudeness. Enzo is the complete opposite spectrum to Jacques, he LOVES showing off his diving skills to the gallery. He is flash and boastful. Enzo wants to be the Best, he wants to win all. He believes strongly in his own abilities and has a hard time to accept that maybe, someone is better than he is at diving and somehow, that will be his downfall.

The sea is what the sea is always. Beautiful, fruitful but unknown, powerful and a dangerous place for the human kind. The sea is to be respected, treated as you would do of a potent ally. Never should you believe yourself bigger than the sea, or it will make you pay a very heavy price for your arrogance. But the sea can also be a man’s best friend, a man’s mistress, a man’s family.

All three actors succeed in making you empathise fully with their situation or position, you will feel yourself pulled in all directions as the film progresses and will be unable to take sides.

This movie will transport you to places you might have been or never have been, but it will always touch your heart and your mind. The story is realistic, up to the point that you are prone to believe that it might be true ! And maybe it is true.. I will let you make your own mind up.

In my book this movie has everything. A story, emotions, laughs, scenery, sensuality, great acting, a shooting that can only be described as genial and a fantastic original soundtrack – unless you get this movie in the USA where the soundtrack was overlayed which is a great shame. And the reason why it did not get the Worldwide acclaim, publicity and coverage it should have had can only be explain by the fact that at the time, Luc Besson was not yet the star he is and it was a French movie.

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Free Diving
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Free Diving is a sport in which human will dive into the water without any external help or bottled air, they simply inhale and dive aided by a weighted vehicule.

The current Free Diving World record is held by Francisco ‘Pipin’ Ferreras at 170m (558 feet). In 2002, Pipin’s protégé and wife died during her world record attempt.

You will easily imagine that Free Diving is an extremely dangerous sports which pushes human capabilities to the very limit.

Jacques Mayol is a real person, he is a free diver, first man to break the 100m (330 Feet) mark. His personal record stands at 105m (346 feet) at the tender age of 56.

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Conclusion
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Buy this movie, buy this movie, buy this movie, buy this movie… and while you are at it, get the soundtrack. I do not hold any shares in any company distributing these products but they marked my Life in such a way that I want to share it with a maximum of people. This is a cult movie that will be talked about for decades to come, so join the bangwagon now.

If you do insist, I am happy to write a review on the soundtrack as well, just post enough requests in my Guestbox and I will ply to your demands.

You may find, depending on the version you have that the movie differ somewhat. I have reviewed the Long Version of this movie which I believe is the best of all, though there have been countless versions made which different scenes cut out.

My thanks for reading such a long review.. my only excuse… it is a long movie…