Luc Besson's best work

Rating: Null/10 (25 April 2009)

I have watched this film for the first time many years ago, though I couldn't understand it very well then, I thought it was beautiful and fascinating. So when I recognized the original soundtrack in a TV program accidentally, I decided to watch it again. This time I chose the director's cut version which is almost 3-hour long. And I have to say it did worth the 3 hours.
The film is definitely a masterpiece from Luc Besson. Unlike many of Besson's later works ("Nikita", "Léon", "The Fifth Element"), this one has no action, no violence, no bloody scenes. Thus, to many of the Hollywood blockbuster lovers, this film is just too boring. Personally, I don't like French films much, for many of them seems ridiculous to me. But this one isn't ridiculous at all, it's a dreamlike tribute to the purity of soul. It doesn't have much about love between boys and girls, but it's one of the most romantic films I have ever seen. Because it's about a much more romantic love, the pure love of the sea and the peace. However, it's no at all an abstract poetry, it has many hilarious moments. The French sense of humor is quite enjoyable in this film. Besides, the film also showed the reality and the gap between reality and ideality. The love between the American girl and the French boy is somewhat like the reality, while the boy's love of the sea is ideality. What the girl wants is reality while the boy wants ideality. The gap between them is just like the gap between reality and ideality. The boy is like a symbol of purity, and he chooses ideality at last, the ideal world of peace. It's always sad to admit that purity only belongs to the ideal world.
All of the sea scenes in this film is incredibly beautiful. My favourite parts are the French boy's illusions of sea and dolphins, one scene is when he's brought back from the deep sea, and another is when he wakes up from sleep. The ending of the director cut version is also very good. The so-called happy ending of the American version is really ridiculous. The soundtrack of the director cut version suits the sea scenes very well, making the whole film more enthralling. I don't know why the soundtrack in the American version is different, but the change is also a great loss of the charm.