Pirates and speedos and sharks, oh my!
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is home to many strangely named towns, including Monkey's Paw and Salt Lick but not, as Wes Anderson's latest film suggests, Jawbone. Kentucky's western neighbor Missouri has that honor. Though a fine filmmaker,
***image1***
Anderson's minor cartological gaffe sums up the feeling one has when leaving
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
-something feels slightly off.
Bill Murray plays Steve Zissou, a Cousteau-esque oceanographer and filmmaker whose career is on the downturn. After his partner is eaten by a shark, Zissou swears revenge, setting off to hunt the killer with a reporter (Cate Blanchett), his crew, Team Zissou, and Ned (Owen Wilson), the Jawbone, Kentucky native who may or may not be Zissou's illegitimate son.
Ned is the first indication something is amiss. His accent, a soft, Jimmy Carter-like drawl, is a poorly drawn caricature of Southern speech, better suited to a 19th century plantation than 21st century Kentucky.
Visually, Anderson is still at the top of his game, framing every shot like a still photograph and filling the screen with aquarium-worthy color, but added to this impressive display-with mixed results-is an assortment of animated sea creatures lifted from
Pee Wee's Playhouse
. Overboard both in color and motion, the creatures are obviously not meant to be mistaken for the real thing. The cuteness line is crossed at times and the final encounter with the killer shark is deflated by the flat-out goofiness of the animation.
The music, as in Anderson's previous films, is a well-choreographed extension of the action onscreen, replacing dialogue at times and setting the overall mood for each scene. Composer Mark
Mothersbaugh, an Anderson collaborator since the director's 1996 debut,
Bottle Rocket
, returns in a somewhat restrained capacity, taking
***image2***
a backseat to the songs of David Bowie, sung in Portuguese by
City of God
's Seu Jorge, and the use of the Stooges' "Raw Power" during a showdown with Filipino pirates is straight-up brilliant.
Aquatic
is, on the whole, no embarrassment to Anderson's oeuvre. Murray is well-cast in the role of Zissou, revisiting the complex blend of heroism and zeroism of his roles in Anderson's
Rushmore
and
The Royal Tenenbaums
, as well as his Oscar-nominated performance in
Lost in Translation
.
Though labeled comedies, there is great sadness at the core of Anderson's films. He relies on characters who've passed their prime and are faced with the realization they're not as good as they once were. Four films into his career, some may say Anderson has become one of his own characters, but beyond the sometimes grating flaws,
Aquatic
is a film of tremendous beauty and depth that is well worth exploring.
