Fish! ..and lots of it! Glass-bottom boats, eat your hearts out. This most
recent offering by Luc Besson made me want to go home and reinvent my fish
tank - fill it with blimp-like penguins and silvery fish.
For a sleazy $2.50 (crumpet and coffee included) you could have gleaned the
coupling of turtles and of pug-faced eels from a rectangular view. But
within the confines of the tank, the penguins would be hanging off the
edges; beaks propped against fins, complaining of boredom and their longing
for the infinite ocean.
Out there, in Luc Besson's Atlantis, the sea surface reflecting the glint of
the setting sun, resembles an impenetrable sheet of beaten gold. Below the
crashing waves, descending into darkness however, is a world all at once
mysterious, beautiful, surprising and intriguing; a stage, with all the
comedy and drama comparable to that of its landlubber counterparts. Without
the tell tale blue, the landscape mimics the view from the window of a car
lolling down a dark highway, or is at times convincingly moonlike. Where
else would you be able to find such variety? Picture an old shipwreck
monopolised by schools of stripey, spotty, multitonal fish, and much deeper,
against puffy marshmallow ice crops, a light appears out of the darkness, as
mysterious as a monolith.
Stage, and stage-props aside, the characters of this film are just as
interesting. Eric Serra's score personifies the inhabitants of Atlantis;
each with their own story to tell - the John Goodman puffer fish; the alien
octopus lying on its back gulping emphysematically, and the comic dugongs,
like old unused torpedoes lunching on lettuce leaves. The loudest silence
and tiniest tap of a crab's claw is amplified for our ears. The music shifts
from the graceful ballet of dolphin pairs, to the happy Flashdancing seals,
and fearsome sharks, eyeballing the camera. The track written for the sharks
is called Fear. An apt name, as they seem convincingly amiable right up to
the point when one bares its teeth and attempts to embed it in the camera.
Upon return to the surface, you are left wanting to dive down again and stay
for a few more hours. So be prepared to stagger out, warmed by the cool
waters, but blinded outside by the bright sun and annoyed by the noisy
traffic, still thinking of Atlantis.
yu-ching lee
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