14-18 Le bruit & la fureur
An interesting take on the 1914-18 war. 48 minutes in you see mention of mountain fighting.
Sometimes I stumble across documentaries that I feel excel in their genre. One such documentary is Earthrace: The Power Boat Race around the World. This is a one and a half hour documentary charting the fundraising, awareness building, race preparations and then the actual race, including logistics and more.
I like this documentary because the editing rhythm is in keeping with the story. The story is told in a logical and chronological order with no excessive editing, no breathless commentary, no excessive use of music. It is one and a half hours exploring the project from its start until its temporary conclusion.
I like the use of timelapse for the Panama canal where we see the boat move in next to the container ship. I think the explanation of why the skipper had liposuction could have been explained much sooner in the documentary. I think it’s in the second documentary that we hear that the bio-diesel that was made from fat was used to first start the engines.
Some documentaries are filmed within a period of weeks or months but this one was filmed over four years. As a result the chronological structure of the documentary also makes sense. I was able to watch over an hour before I took a break, and then watched it until the end.
If you find this documentary interesting then there is a follow-up documentary about the successful circumnavigation of the globe.
Recently Netflix added a Browse by Language option which means that you can browse for content by original language. Yesterday I saw that I can browse for content in French, Italian, Polish,, Korean, German and many more languages. I could list more but that’s dull. Instead I want to focus on the opportunities it opens up.
With YouTube, Apple Films and other platforms you can search for films but they are either in French, German or Italian in Switzerland and it’s hard to find content that is in its original language.
For English speaking YouTube creators they always say with “frogspawn VPN you can pretend you’re in country A to watch content from there” etc. This does appeal to me in rare situations. What appeals more is the freedom to search for French, Italian or Korean content. By watching a film made in French, Italian, Korean or any other language you are entering a different culture.
One of my favourite films, when I watched 90 films in the span of 9 months or so was that I saw films I would not otherwise see. Brotherhood, the Korean film is excellent. I also really enjoyed Hong Kong martial arts films.
It is for this reason that last night I watched the King’s Affection, episode 1.
With Netflix and Amazon Prime it is was to get stuck watching US and UK content without thinking of watching content in other languages. Netflix has now made it possible to explore the world of film and television, on an international, cross-cultural scale. You have thirty two languages to choose from. Now you see why I didn’t list them all earlier.
Last night Netflix removed Young Sheldon from Netflix Switzerland so I was angry. I cancelled my subscription until I noticed the browse by language feature, and then Netflix became as rich and diverse as a film festival. By selecting Russian, Romanian, Telugu or another language you travel through space and time to other cultures, other values, and different ways of seeing the world.
I had skimmed over Netflix France and noticed that they had a lot of extreme sports content.
Film and Television is a great way to discover new languages, new cultures, and new ways of seeing the world. By making Netflix more international they are helping to bring more people into contact with more cultures. This is good.
Sharkwater – A documentary worth watching.
If you have one and a half hours of free time I recommend watching this documentary. It discusses the anti-whaling work by the Sea Shepherd, the work it did to combat long lining around the Galapagos and it touches on the shark finning mafia and corruption.
The documentary also looks at the public perception of sharks. It shows that they are not the dangerous animal that they were thought to be until recent history. The film ends with a shot of the narrator free-diving with sharks and being perfectly relaxed. At one point he says “sharks are so sensitive that they can feel your heart beat, if you are calm they will stay but if you panic they will flee”. I paraphrased his exact words.
Another theme that is explored in this documentary is the food chain. He mentions that plankton absorb a lot of Carbon dioxide and that with the overfishing of sharks the ecological balance will be ruined as the apex predators are lost. He pushes strongly for the conservation of shark numbers. We are familiar with the current Save our Sharks movement.
This is an interesting investigative documentary about the economy surrounding shark finning and why it has a negative impact on the food chain. If the documentary was updated it could look at the economic viability of shark tourism that has grown in recent years. Sharks, in some places are more valuable alive than dead. If you don’t have time to watch the entire documentary then I recommend that you watch the last thirty to fourty minutes.