Review: L'odyssée (The Odyssey)

Distilling a life into two hours is no easy task. Cover the milestones and a biographical film comes off as by-the-numbers and lacking in depth. Tackle too much and one risks losing focus on the subject rather than providing a multi-dimensional portrait. Indeed, there are multiple competing narrative strands in L'odyssée, Jérôme Salle's biopic of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, some of which sometimes coalesce but more often than not run parallel with one another.

Spanning about three decades in the life of the celebrated pioneer, innovator, filmmaker, oceanographer, and conservationist, the film begins shortly after WWII as French naval officer Cousteau (an excellent Lambert Wilson) and his two partners present the Aqua-Lung, a groundbreaking invention that allowed users to breathe underwater. Taking to the limelight, Cousteau decides to further his explorations, purchasing and restoring a ship called the Calypso, and setting sail around the world to research and film the underwater kingdom and its creatures.

That Cousteau was a figure of fascination is no mystery. Cousteau was the right man at the right place with the right outlet for his work. Television brought more of the world into people's homes, and the adventures of Cousteau and his crew were an early reality show, sharing heretofore unseen sights to the masses. Cousteau himself was a charismatic figure and indulged in all the advantages that came with his celebrity, much to the frustration of his wife Simone (Audrey Tautou) and sons Philippe (Pierre Niney) and Jean-Michel (Benjamin Lavernhe).

Philippe shares his love for deep-diving, becoming the lead cameraman for most of Cousteau's films. His recklessness, however, was not appreciated by other members of the Calypso's crew. One of the many magnificent scenes in the film finds Philippe and another crew member filming sharks, who circle closer and closer and closer - Philippe refusing to budge in order to get the shot whilst the other crew member frantically tries to get him to go back to the protective cage. Philippe's clear-eyed view of his father's infidelities, selfishness and negligence on ecological conservation causes a rift between the two, one that Cousteau is more eager to repair than the one between him and his other son, Jean-Michel, who all but fades in the background.

Neither a trenchant nor whitewashed rendering of Cousteau, L'odyssée is at least a visually breathtaking film which, in many ways, might be the best tribute to the man who helped to make such sequences possible. Perhaps no image represents the film better than the one of Philippe and a whale, side by side in perfect harmony.

L'odyssée (The Odyssey)

Directed by: Jérôme Salle

Written by: Jérôme Salle, Laurent Turner; based on the book Capitaine de La Calypso by Albert Falco and Jean-Michel Cousteau

Starring: Lambert Wilson, Pierre Niney, Audrey Tautou, Laurent Lucas, Benjamin Lavernhe, Vincent Heneine, Thibault de Montalembert, Adam Neill, Roger van Hool, Chloe Hirschman