La Vie aquatique

Le pire, le plus faible et le plus horrible des films d'Anderson jusqu'à présent. J'espère qu'il s'agit d'une exception, que je vais donc m'abstenir de sanctionner par un rejet, par respect pour le réalisateur. Ça faisait longtemps qu'un film m'avait autant exaspéré et ennuyé du début à la fin. Deux heures de bavardages, de blagues plates et de scènes stupides, embarrassantes et lourdes. Une m_rde absolue. (03/02/2024)

I can’t say that this film could ever win a five-star rating from me, but on the other hand, I have to admit that Wes Anderson has an absolutely great style of lifting the viewer’s mood; both when it comes to the characters and when it comes to the storytelling – it seems normal at first, but in reality, it’s one big mess. Which is actually really nice. Everybody who moves a finger in that movie is in a great mood. And apart from that, Wes has an amazing imagination that – combined with the motion picture and an appropriate choice of music – creates an incredible experience. But I wasn’t really able to ride the comedy wave of this movie. But that doesn’t change the fact that I felt really nice after watching it. (14/03/2014)

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was a big surprise. I expected a weird and untraditional film, but in a completely different way: a crazy comedy, but it turned out to be a pretty serious and sad piece, and also very pleasantly incorrect. I recommend not looking for any information, nor reading anything about it before watching it (as I did this time); it’s better to watch it unprepared :-) (23/01/2011)

An indescribably “weird" movie. What ever I might write about either isn’t true or doesn’t reflect the facts. I might use words like melancholic, nostalgic, sad etc., but the end result isn’t like that at all. It’s a picture that you’ll find boring, unless you happen to be in the right mood for it, in which case you’ll be greatly entertained. I don’t dare to say whether it’s a comedy, a parody, a homage to Cousteau or a serious drama. But it certainly has a whole lotta love in it and a bit of everything else. It even has some of Karel Zeman’s movies in it too. I suppose that this is sort of how, as a child, Wes Anderson imagined the work of an oceanographer and here he is simply sharing his vision with us. (21/03/2005)

One must admire Anderson, because he managed to keep this strange patchwork of pseudo-documentary, infantile D adventure and intimate drama together with the ease of a master. This is greatly aided by the music, especially the postmodern remakes of David Bowie into Portuguese and intimate songwriting, which have a special rhythmic impact on the overall somewhat unbalanced tempo of the film thanks to the regular cuts to musician Seu Jorge. An indispensable specificity of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is the stylized camera, especially the composition of images, which often resembles a group photo from a traveler's diary (or scenes from children's hero games – as you can see, they are close to each other). However, the main driving aspect of the film is undoubtedly the acting performances (I have to mention the phenomenal Willem Dafoe and especially Bill Murray, who is at the imaginary peak of his powers!), thanks to which one overcomes the vertigo of confusion in the opening parts of the film and, with a little luck, finds the path to Steve Zissou's bizarre aquarium... The risk of him running out of oxygen in the depths is still present, but despite this fact, this film is worth betting on. (19/03/2005)