journal features

movie review - The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2005.01.10

This movie is an odd one. Full of weird little self-referential loops and half-formed sub-stories, it lurches forward with an attenuated pace and almost surreal fluidity. Things seem to happen without rhyme or reason, as if they occur simply to give the characters something to do or talk about. Like it was a Star Trek: The Next Generation movie where everyone is mildly intoxicated.

That said, the cast manages to piece something together, and the whole is better than its wonky writing would suggest. This is the kind of movie that makes it seem that acting can be a very difficult job, indeed.

Recommended.

rand()m quote

If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be crazier than I've been on this trip. I know very few things I'd take seriously any more. I'd certainly be less hygenic... I would take more chances, I would take more trips, I would scale more mountains, I would swim more rivers, and I would watch more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd have many more of them, in fact I'd try not to have anything else, just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of my day. If I had it to do all over again, I'd travel lighter, much lighter than I have. I would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and I'd stay that way later in the fall. And I would ride more merry-go-rounds, and catch more gold rings, and greet more people and pick more flowers and dance more often. If I had it to do all over again - but you see, I don't.

—Jorge Luis Borges