FILM
BLUE ????????
(PG) Selected cinemas (76 minutes)
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Many trash cinema buffs have a weakness for the "mondo" films of the 1970s and '80s - travelogues purporting to document all kinds of sensational material, from striptease acts to gruesome deaths.
The genre is given a New Age twist in environmental documentaries like Blue, which set out to rub our faces in the damage done by humans to the natural world.
Directed by the Australian scientist Karina Holden, Blue concentrates on the ocean, with a series of segments - filmed mainly in Australia and South East Asia - that dwell on the disastrous impact of pollution, global warming and over-fishing.
Voiceover narration is supplied by various conservationists and other concerned citizens; though the script, which has its share of purple passages, is credited solely to Holden.
Most of the segments follow the same pattern: starting out with the beauty of nature, then showing it despoiled. Shark fins lopped off; seabirds caught in plastic; bleached coral reefs, like abandoned bones.
These are images seemingly meant to induce the opposite of pleasure; though Ash Gibson Greig's??? soothing score lets us experience them as grimly beautiful in their own way.
One of the best sequences reminds us that aquatic filmmaking has a history of its own: an encounter with 81-year-old shark expert Valerie Taylor whose documentaries - made with her husband Ron from the 1960s onward - have found several generations of fans.
Today's oceans are still beautiful, she says, but with marine life depleted and diversity vastly reduced, they're nothing like those she explored in her younger days.
Unlike the work of the Taylors, or even the "mondo" films, Blue is probably not going to be remembered as any kind of art. All the same, it's a powerful experience - worth viewing for anyone who needs reminding what is happening to the planet, and of how unfathomably evil humans might appear from any other species' point of view.
Like most films of its kind, Blue is strong on facts and figures, and closes with information on where to look online to learn more.
Does this kind of parade of horrors do any practical good, or is it merely a modern brand of exploitation cinema, letting us feel righteously indignant as well as thrillingly appalled?
The jury is out; but even if you imagine you've seen it all before, you might emerge, as I did, newly shaken and vowing to cut down on your use of plastic bags.