This is a relatively recent and rapidly developing story. The predictions range from mildly catastrophic to entirely catastrophic: a collapse of the whole global ecosystem. And no one knows what the ultimate effect of this will be. The film makes the point that 93% of the rise in temperatures is absorbed by the oceans, so that while climate change deniers debate changes on the earth’s surface and atmosphere, the seas are where the most massive and incontrovertible damage is being done. There seems no doubt that the corals’ death spiral is the result of global climate change. When Orlowski and his crew sail over living coral and then the images change to the mortuaries of bleached coral, it’s like aerial views of Dublin or Salzburg morphing into pictures of bombed-out Dresden or Mosul. The phenomenon called bleaching is when corals give up their vibrant colors and become a ghostly white, usually dying thereafter. This is where the imagery in “Chasing Coral” goes from intoxicating to chilling. And in the last three decades they’ve been dying off at a stunning rate.
They are also vastly important to all life on earth as the environmental basis for the fish and other marine life that supports much human life. Seen up close, they have an incredible variety and beauty. But there is trouble down below, and the film heads directly for it.Ĭorals, it stresses, may look like giant undersea carpets or rock formations, but they are living organisms. As important as those shows were, their 16mm images now look dim and murky compared to the luminous, crystal-clear and spectacularly colorful digital images in this film.Įarly on, the viewer’s eye is enraptured by the world the camera beholds, and it’s easy to imagine how pleasurable a feature-length tour of such sights might be.
AL GORE’S FILM AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH DOCUMENTED THE EFFECT OF WHAT ON CLIMATE TEMPERATURE? TV
Older viewers are bound to marvel at what a distance we’ve come in terms of undersea cinematography since the prime of French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, whose TV docs were popular in decades past. It must be noted that, from its first moments on, “Chasing Coral” is simply staggering visually. So Orlowski was sought out and engaged as the director of “Chasing Coral.” And not long after that, by chance he saw a documentary called “ Chasing Ice” by Jeff Orlowski and realized that it did for the world’s vanishing glaciers what he thought needed to be done for coral reefs. Wanting to show others what was happening, he set out document the undersea world much as Google Earth had mapped the surface. Once he decided to focus on the plight of corals, Vevers’ instincts as an advertising man came into play. Landing eventually in Australia, he began a new career in undersea photography and, after a few years, noticed that some of his favorite marine creatures were disappearing. The first of these, Richard Vevers, was a London advertising executive who, after climbing the corporate ladder, decided he’d had enough of selling toilet paper and set off for the South Seas. But in a structural sense, “Chasing Coral” is somewhat unusual in having one main character who dominates the story early on, and another who comes to the fore in the second half. In fact, there are several interesting characters-as well as a large supporting cast, mainly scientists-in the film. Like all such documentaries, this one may focus on the physical world, but it also has human protagonists.