Celebrated filmmaker David Attenborough guides us through a remarkable documentary about oceans, screening on Sunday, June 8, at the M.V. Film Center, in honor of World Oceans Day. At nearly 100 years old, Attenborough explains why a healthy ocean is crucial for maintaining the stability and flourishing of the entire planet. This is the perfect message for the holiday, an annual global celebration dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of our oceans and promoting their conservation. It serves as a call to action for individuals, communities, and governments to protect and preserve the marine environment.
Directors Colin Butfield, Toby Nowlan, and Keith Scholey divide the spectacularly shot film into three robust thrusts, each filled with arresting photography and information. Attenborough sets the stage, saying in his resonant voice, “All life began in the deep blue sea. Its flow and force have shaped our world. Revered and feared since humans first walked this earth … only now are we discovering what the ocean means for the future of our world. What we have found could change everything.”
Before addressing how things can change, the documentary showcases the astonishing beauty of underwater environments, emphasizing, as Attenborough tells us, how this is the greatest age of ocean discovery. For instance, we learn about the deep ocean, which until recently was unexplored and thought to be largely uninhabited. Footage reveals that some 40,000 enormous, three-mile-high submarine mountains serve as pit stops for all sorts of sea life on their cross-ocean odysseys, providing fertile feeding grounds.
Closer to land are enormous swaths of kelp rainforests — bordering one-fourth of the world’s coastal seas — that absorb more carbon than rainforests on land. Stunning underwater photography showcases the diverse array of ocean life the forests support, with approximately 2,000 new species being discovered each year.
Similarly, Attenborough says, living coral reefs support unimaginable quantities of phytoplankton, single-cell plants that also absorb almost one-third of carbon emissions. “They can be [critical] to avoiding climate catastrophe, producing more oxygen than all the trees on Earth. That is half of the air we breathe,” he says.
The mood shifts dramatically, with immersive footage and commentary about the devastation caused by numerous global industrial fishing techniques, including bottom trawlers, which annually destroy the seabed and thriving habitats in areas nearly the size of the Amazon. The resulting destruction resembles the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. Climate change and our warming waters are prompting coral to develop protective, cement-like calcification, thereby eliminating entire ecosystems, and hindering the coral’s ability to produce oxygen.
These are all just the tip of the iceberg regarding the harm humans are inflicting on our vital seas. Although the problems are undeniably clear and unsettling, Attenborough concludes on a hopeful note. He highlights straightforward and innovative opportunities for marine life recovery, which he attests are beyond anything anyone alive has ever witnessed, leaving us with a sense of hope and the inspiration to do what we can. As Attenborough says, “After living for nearly 100 years on this planet, I now understand that the most important place on Earth is not on land, but on sea.”
Following the film, there will be a special showing of “A Deeper Dive with David Attenborough,” which takes audiences behind the scenes, with additional footage and interviews on the making of “Ocean.”
“Ocean with David Attenborough” screens for one night on Sunday, June 8, at the M.V. Film Center in Vineyard Haven. For more information, visit mvfilmsociety.com.
