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CINEMA RELEASE<br />
The<br />
Odyssey<br />
Starring: Lambert Wilson,<br />
Pierre Niney, Audrey Tautou<br />
Director: Jérôme Salle<br />
Certificate: TBC<br />
Running time: 122 minutes<br />
Release date: 18 August<br />
✮✮✮✮<br />
How do you condense the eventful life of someone as celebrated<br />
as Jacques-Yves Cousteau into a two-hour film? If you<br />
are director Jérôme Salle, you focus on the undersea<br />
explorer’s stormy relationship with son Philippe to show<br />
the passions and demons that drove him to greatness. It is an approach<br />
that makes The Odyssey an intriguing, if rather superficial, look at<br />
a flawed French icon.<br />
Spanning about 30 years, the film follows Cousteau (Wilson) as he goes<br />
from diving equipment pioneer to oceanographer and documentary-maker,<br />
assembling a crew and, with wife Simone (Tautou) by his side, sailing the<br />
seven seas on his ship Calypso. The Frenchman’s celebrity status causes<br />
friction with his family, in particular second son Philippe (Niney), whose<br />
own travels around the globe have made him a committed environmentalist.<br />
While Cousteau’s contribution to making us appreciate our planet<br />
comes across loud and clear in Salle’s film, it is his shortcomings as<br />
a husband and a father that are more interesting. Scenes where he is<br />
confronted over his infidelity or selfishness by his wife and son feature<br />
some fine work by the three lead actors.<br />
This being a movie about deep-sea exploration, The Odyssey looks<br />
absolutely beautiful, with underwater footage of divers gliding around the<br />
big blue showing nature in all its glory and driving home the movie’s<br />
conservation message. While The Odyssey falls short of being the ultimate<br />
character study (Cousteau’s penchant for extra-marital affairs is not<br />
covered in enough detail), this is still a well-crafted biopic about a national<br />
treasure that is well worth exploring.<br />
Pierre de Villiers<br />
OTHER NEW RELEASES<br />
CINEMA<br />
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (from 2 August)<br />
– Luc Besson. master of the spectacular sci-fi (The Fifth<br />
Element, Lucy) returns with this comic-book tale of two special<br />
operatives who have to protect a vast futuristic metropolis<br />
from dark forces. Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne star.<br />
Le Doulos (from 11 August) – Re-release of<br />
a stylish 1963 film noir from director Jean-<br />
Pierre Melville, who was heavily influenced by<br />
classic Hollywood thrillers. The plot focuses<br />
on the relationship between a thief (Serge<br />
Reggiani) and a suspected police informant<br />
(Jean-Paul Belmondo).<br />
92 FRANCE MAGAZINE www.completefrance.com
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