the big blue movie review

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Upcoming Movies and TV shows
Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

What's the Tomatometer®?
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

Opening this week
Top box office
Coming soon to theaters
Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

Netflix streaming
Prime Video
Most popular streaming movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

Monkey Man Link to Monkey Man
The First Omen Link to The First Omen
The Beast Link to The Beast

New TV Tonight

Chucky: Season 3
Mr Bates vs The Post Office: Season 1
Fallout: Season 1
Franklin: Season 1
Dora: Season 1
Good Times: Season 1
Beacon 23: Season 2

The Big Blue

1988, Adventure/Action, 1h 58m

What to know

Critics Consensus

Though this movie features beautiful cinematography, it drags on, being way too overblown and melodramatic. Read critic reviews

Rate and review.

Super Reviewer

Rate this movie

Oof, that was Rotten.

Meh, it passed the time.

It’s good – I’d recommend it.

So Fresh: Absolute Must See!

What did you think of the movie? (optional)

You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.

Step 2 of 2

How did you buy your ticket?

Let's get your review verified..

AMCTheatres.com or AMC App New

Cinemark Coming Soon

We won’t be able to verify your ticket today, but it’s great to know for the future.

Regal Coming Soon

Theater box office or somewhere else

By opting to have your ticket verified for this movie, you are allowing us to check the email address associated with your Rotten Tomatoes account against an email address associated with a Fandango ticket purchase for the same movie.

You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.

The big blue photos.

Director Luc Besson is famous for his imaginative visual technique and breathtaking action sequences. One of the most stunningly beautiful films ever made, "The Big Blue" features gorgeous underwater photography and spectacular location shooting in the French Antibes, the Greek islands, Peru, and Taormina in Sicily. But it is the emotional intensity of the film experience and mystical themes of the story that have made it a cult phenomenon.

Genre: Adventure, Action, Drama

Original Language: English

Director: Luc Besson

Producer: Patrice Ledoux

Writer: Luc Besson , Luc Besson , Robert Garland , Marilyn Goldin , Jacques Mayol , Marc Perrier

Release Date (Theaters): Jan 1, 1988 wide

Release Date (Streaming): Aug 17, 2018

Box Office (Gross USA): $2.9M

Runtime: 1h 58m

Distributor: Columbia Pictures

Production Co: Weintraub Entertainment Group, Gaumont

Sound Mix: Surround, Magnetic Stereo 6 Track

Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)

Cast & Crew

Rosanna Arquette

Jean-Marc Barr

Jacques Mayol

Enzo Molinari

Paul Shenar

Dr. Laurence

Griffin Dunne

Uncle Louis

Sergio Castellitto

Jean Bouise

Robert Garland

Marilyn Goldin

Marc Perrier

Patrice Ledoux

Original Music

Carlo Varini

Cinematographer

Olivier Mauffroy

Film Editing

Nathalie Cheron

Celestia Fox

Lissa Pillu

Production Design

Patrick Barthelemy

Set Decoration

Magali Guidasci

Costume Design

Geneviève Peyralade

Makeup Artist

Set Dresser

Critic Reviews for The Big Blue

Audience reviews for the big blue.

Luc Besson overindulges all over your face in this overlong consideration about what is better, dreams or reality, framed (very nearly incidentally) by the sport of free diving. Jean Reno dominates the work which includes many beautiful underwater scenes, particularly those including dolphins. But it is too long, and poor Rosanna Arquette is made to portray reality, at first beautiful but by turns nagging and annoying, for so long that there's really no question which way Besson's hero is gonna go.

Wow, even some of Luc Besson's French films are English-speaking, so I guess that should tell you just how much he wishes he was American. Actually, maybe it's not all that fair to say because even Mel Gibson was turning out American films in not just foreign languages, but ancient languages that close-to no one uses anymore, and anyone who does is probably a little bit weird. These multilingual foreign films have been around forever; Sergio Leone was making non-Italian Italian films all the time, only you never noticed, because they kept dubbing over everyone. I mean, come on, did you seriously think that they got Clint Eastwood to speak Italian? They probably tried, only it just sounded too ridiculous, and he kept tacking on "punk" at the end of everything. Well, anyways, bad jokes aside, the point is that Mr. Besson doesn't appear to be all that capable of holding on to his own culture, so of course he's not all that capable of holding an audience's attention, or at least when he's not having Jason Statham, Vincent Cassel or Liam Neeson jump around and beat people up. No, this film isn't all that disengaging, but if you're expecting this almost three hour film about a bunch of people swimming around with dolphins to be riveting then, well, clearly you're a fan of fishing, whereas I for one have to say that a bunch of people hanging out in whater, while making for a pretty decent movie, doesn't make for a terribly consistently engrossing non-epic. The film is rarely, if ever all that dryly dull, yet pads itself out quite considerably with bloated moments of pure meditation and excess material. In all fairness, I have only presented myself with the gratuitously whopping 168 minute director's cut, which tosses on an extra 36 minutes to the original European theatrical cut, much of which I'm sure has to be yet more padding, yet it's still safe to presume that bloating and padding plagued the original cuts as well, for this is a story that, in concept, could fit a lengthy runtime, yet in structure, doesn't even feel written broadly enough to sustain the theatrical cut's runtime, let alone the nearly three hour long mammoth I just watched. The film goes tainted with a fair couple of long, repetitive and, at time, disengaging periods of sobering meditation over pure nothingness, and limited intrigue the rest of the time. This limited intrigue uncovers the melodrama of the story, while the moments of meditation and consistent tone of overambition, as well as the occasional piece of cheesy dialogue and a remarkably really bad original song at the credits, augment the cheesiness. The film is unexpectedly lacking in subtlety, even with its limited broadness in plot, anchored down by a melodramatic and occasionally cliched storyline, as well only so many notes to the characters, from Jean Reno's almost exaggeratedly over smooth and vain Enzo Molinari character, to Rosanna Arquette's generic, obnoxiously overbearing and generally uncompelling Johana Baker character, whose unlikability certainly isn't helped by Arquette's uninteresting, when not equally obnoxious and one-note performance, much less her looking just so startlingly homely that there's not only no pretty face to look at, yet an extra serious serious lapse in feeling for Baker's and Jean-Marc Barr's Jacques Mayol character's relationship, because the undeniably good-looking dude could do way better, and you cannot afford to have your audience feel that way in a romance film, nor can you be this meditative and lengthy in a film this unsubtle and histrionic. It's a very overlong, very melodramatic and ultimately rather underwhelming take on a pretty promising premise, thus leaving it rather dissatisfying on a deep emotional level. However, as far as entertainment, the film engages more often than it doesn't, keeping itself going with charm and, of course, handsome style. As far as storytelling style is concerned, the film is faulty as all get-out, yet as far as visual style, the film is something to behold. True, Carlo Varini's cinematography isn't all that consistent in its dazzling color-bounce, yet when it does really play with lighting and color, the result often earns an "awe" and sometimes takes your breath away. Still, more than that, expect nifty and smooth camera tricks that really show off the beauty and sweep of the wonderful locations, while giving the film a kind of slickness that snaps in fittingly and breathes further life into the undeniable charm of the film. The film is a sappy one, as well as much too long for its entertainment value to triumph all that phenomenally, yet there is a charm in its simplicity and ambitious, however simultaneously detrimental it may be, and it's that charm that engages more than anything, with quite the colorful cast of charismas giving it an extra boost. Again, Rosanna Arquette's acting kind of stinks in some parts, evidently being that bad scent that's making her face perk so freakishly, yet the rest of her fellow leads hold their own, particularly Jean Reno, who steals the spotlight just about every golden time it falls upon him, as he graces the screen with such an awesome presence of slick-smooth charisma and lovable jerkery married with nobility, resulting in a character that may be written with few layers, yet goes performed with enough electric confidence by Reno that the film is almost worth watching for his cool self alone. Still, although Reno steals the show, it remains rightfully Jean-Marc Barr's, and while his Jacques Mayol character also unfortunately feels rather underwritten, he still presents enough calm charm and engaging relatability in his charisma to win you ever, yet when the all too occasional opportunity for him to stretch presents itself, he delivers on emotional range and an unexpected touch of subtlety that may not be used to the fullest, yet helps in earning your investment. On a deep substance level, a surprisingly deeply impacting final act that I wish I could have gone more into notwithstanding, the film is simply and sadly just not all that up to par, yet it still rises to the occasion as a generally entertaining charmer of the film that may not deliver on enough consistency in that entertainment to raise the film past a workmanlike level of quality, yet ultimately makes it worth the sit, regardless of how long of a sit it is. Ascending back to the surface after watching this film (Wow, speaking of overlong, that stretch of a metaphor took a while to get through), you leave behind an experience that more than outstayed its welcome, going padded out by excess material and moments of gratuitous meditation made ineffective by a considerable lack of subtlety and diversity within the occasionally conventional and consistently melodramatic, rather cheesy storyline, yet you still swim to the shores satisfied by the film's handsome style and general entertainment value, kept alive by incontrovertible consistent charm which, in it of itself, goes supplemented by a fair couple of charming performances, with the show-stealing Jean Reno and show-leading Jean Marc Barr delivering particularly winning performances that help in making "Le Grand Bleu", or "The Big Blue" - if you're not going to be like Luc Besson and pretend that this film English-talkie is really all that French enough for a French title - to triumph as a generally enjoyable piece of charming dazzle. 2.5/5 - Fair

For me this film managed to be romantic, warm and loving yet cold and distant at the same time. I suppose this is an achievement iitself and is maybe why it has the massive cult following it does? Beautifully shot and if you like dolphins (as I do) you will find certain scenes simply mesmeric. I enjoyed Jean Renos performance (as I have in most films ive seen him in) and Barr is also good. Whilst Arquette was annoyingly screechy at times I still couldnt help but warm to her. The film is long at almost 3 hours though it didnt feel like it to me. However, I found the ending sad in a completely unsatisfactory way. Im not of the school of thought that wants (or likes) every ending of a story to be happy-happy-joy-joy (far from it) but I just couldnt understand the choice Jacques made at the end. As far as Bessons films go, give me Leon any day of the week.

"The Big Blue (French: Le Grand Bleu), released in 1988, is the first English-language film made by French director Luc Besson. The film stars Jean-Marc Barr, Rosanna Arquette, Jean Reno and depicts a fictionalized account of the sporting rivalry between two famed free divers" "The Big Blue" is Luc Besson?s most poetic film and its visuals ooze sensuality and beauty. It is the love story between Jacques and Johanna, nicely played by Rosanna Arquette, the dramatic competition between the two men, or just their common love for the ocean, Besson always captures the moments in vibrant images to create a very beautiful tapestry of emotions and sights.

Movie & TV guides

Play Daily Tomato Movie Trivia

Discover What to Watch

Rotten Tomatoes Podcasts

Le Grand bleu (1988) Directed by Luc Besson

Film review, film synopsis, similar films.

Presque rien (2000)
Pretty Baby (1978)
Howards End (1992)
Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991)
L'Innocente (1976)

Film Credits

Other things to look at.

The Big Blue

David Brisbin (Jack) Taunie Vrenon (Carmen) John Erdman (Max) Jim Neu (Monroe) Sheila McLaughlin (Myrna) José Rafael Arango (Ramone) Kirsten Bates (Marlene) Ben Ben Yehuda Muriel Castanis (Mrs. Murray) Ted Castle

Andrew Horn

Everything looks extremely unlikely, everything looks like it's all the same, you don't know what happened. But you know it happened to you.

Recommendations

Awesome, you're subscribed!

Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!

The best things in life are free.

Déjà vu! We already have this email. Try another?

By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.

Love the mag?

Our newsletter hand-delivers the best bits to your inbox. Sign up to unlock our digital magazines and also receive the latest news, events, offers and partner promotions.

Things to Do
Food & Drink
Arts & Culture
Time Out Market
Coca-Cola Foodmarks
Los Angeles

Get us in your inbox

🙌 Awesome, you're subscribed!

The Big Blue

Time out says, release details.

Duration: 119 mins

Cast and crew

Director: Luc Besson
Screenwriter: Luc Besson, Robert Garland, Marilyn Goldin, Jacques Mayol, Marc Perrier
Rosanna Arquette
Jean-Marc Barr
Paul Shenar
Sergio Castellitto
Jean Bouise
Griffin Dunne

An email you’ll actually love

Discover Time Out original video

Press office
Investor relations
Work for Time Out
Editorial guidelines
Privacy notice
Do not sell my information
Cookie policy
Accessibility statement
Terms of use
Modern slavery statement
Manage cookies
Advertising

Time Out Worldwide

All Time Out Locations
North America
South America
South Pacific

The Big Blue Review

11 May 1988

120 minutes

Big Blue, The

Luc Besson, he of the cinema du look, if not cinema du think, reached a kind of Zen-like apotheosis with this tale of men-fish, slowing down their heart-rates so that they can plunge into the amniotic glory of the deep and commune with nature. It’s a spiritual glaze: achingly beautiful, haunted by the tender strains of Eric Serra’s keyboards, but, at heart, pure showing off. Unsurprisingly, then, it has become a cult champion, lost to the exigencies of plot.

What, Mr. Besson, are we to make of Jacques’ somnolent, inhuman persona? Jean-Marc Barr, as handsome as an Alpine dawn, simply fills the vacuum of his character with long-looks and moody indifference. Quite why kooky Rosanne Arquette falls for him, demanding to have his children even if they might have webbed feet, is anyone’s guess. The script’s not helping, it’s all subtext — man, nature, the great unknowables. It’s probably his magnificent cheekbones and the quirky fact he has pictures of his dolphin family in his wallet.

Jean Reno helps shifts things along, his long-face has an diffident, ironic quality, but we are so engulfed in enigma, we are kept nonplussed if not completely irked by these child-cod-men who dream of spending their lives in the drink.

What’s left is a world spanning, ocean diving aesthetic nearly peerless in its

visual appetite. Nature takes on an sublime, dreamlike quality in cinematographer Carlo Varni’s hands; Besson is much happier communing than telling a story. There’s a lot to be said for just letting it wash over you, you might just detect traces of the spiritual salve it strains for (there’s a 168 min. director’s cut that could replace the need for goldfish). But try fathoming its depths and you’ll just get washed ashore.

MOVIE REVIEW : ‘The Big Blue’ Sinks Deep Into Pointlessness

Show more sharing options
Copy Link URL Copied!

Luc Besson’s “The Big Blue” (citywide) is such a total disaster that it would have been an act of kindness for all concerned to have never released it. Had you not seen Besson’s taut, offbeat French film “Subway” with Christopher Lambert and Isabelle Adjani, and had you never seen Rosanna Arquette on the screen before, you would never believe, on the basis of “The Big Blue,” that she or Besson had a future in films.

It’s an instance of a talented film maker losing his bearings on a grand scale and being tripped up by the language barrier in the process.

At heart, “The Big Blue” is a simple, innocuous story about a lifelong rivalry between two men who dive for depth records and an expression of a profound love of the sea. But Besson has seen fit to film it on the Riviera, in Sicily, Corsica, Paris, New York, the Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Greece, Peru and the Alps.

These photogenic locales, suitable for a James Bond adventure, overwhelm Besson and Robert Garland’s sketchy, incoherent script to the extent that the film is more travelogue than the romantic fable it strives to be with such miscalculated grandiosity.

When we meet Arquette’s Joanna, a kooky Manhattan insurance investigator, she’s arriving at the top of a snowy Peruvian mountain wearing gold high heels for no apparent reason except to make her look foolish. (Don’t ask what’s taken her there.) She’s quickly mesmerized by a young man named Jacques (Jean-Marc Barr), who’s attempting to discover how deeply he can dive into an ice-covered lake.

After wandering through a thicket of pointless, protracted plot machinations, “The Big Blue” at last finds Jacques caught up in an increasingly dangerous diving competition with his old friend Enzo (Jean Reno).

Meanwhile, Joanna is forced to realize that she has fallen in love with a man who seemingly would rather kiss a dolphin than a girl and who is more at home in the water than on land.

The talented Arquette has been given no real character to play, which means we’re treated to the unhappy spectacle of watching her flail around like a trapped bird, striving for some kind of eccentric impression in the absence of any other kind of definition.

Barr has a sleek, ethereal presence that might have been effective in less pretentious circumstances, and Reno is stuck playing a crude, stereotyped Italian womanizer. None of these people come alive--even though Jacques and Enzo are based on actual people.

Carlo Varini’s photography is dazzlingly beautiful, but “The Big Blue” is more a series of pretty pictures than striking images.

There’s no question that the film is more effective in its shimmering, otherworldly underwater sequences, but they’re not enough to overcome a hopeless script. The film has reportedly been trimmed by 25 minutes since its opening-night screening at Cannes, and it has been given a new Bill Conti score, characterized by the kind of flourishes that only underline the film’s self-importance.

Be prepared to want to come up for air only minutes into “The Big Blue” (rated PG for some steamy lovemaking).

Rebel Wilson’s memoir suffers delays amid Sacha Baron Cohen harassment allegations

April 4, 2024

‘Zone’ composer Mica Levi is creating film music like you’ve never heard before

Dec. 12, 2023

Joaquin Phoenix in the movie "Beau Is Afraid."

‘Beau Is Afraid’ explained: A disturbingly in-depth analysis of Ari Aster’s guilt trip to hell

April 19, 2023

Only good movies

Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

More From the Los Angeles Times

The 50 best Hollywood books of all time

Two women look skyward at something ominous.

Review: ‘The First Omen’ plays to the faithful, but more nun fun is to be had elsewhere

April 5, 2024

Sachan Baron Cohen in a bright blue suit holding hands and posing with Isla Fisher in a magenta gown with puff sleeves

Entertainment & Arts

Sacha Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher have split after 13 years of marriage, three kids

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JANUARY 08: (L-R) Actor Adam Sandler attends the 2020 National Board Of Review Gala on January 08, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/FilmMagic)

Fore! ‘Happy Gilmore 2’ is indeed in development, per Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore

Share full article

Supported by

Review/Film; Rival Divers Brave the Depths of the Sea

By Janet Maslin

Aug. 20, 1988

At one point in ''The Big Blue,'' Jacques Mayol (Jean-Marc Barr), the not-of-this-world deep sea diver who is the elusive hero of Luc Besson's new film, shows his wallet to a friend. There's a nicely framed picture of a dolphin inside. ''That's my family,'' Jacques says shyly, then he asks, ''What kind of man has such a family?'' Good question.

''The Big Blue'' provides an answer, after a fashion. It also reveals, among other things, what might happen if two men in evening clothes practicing the art of free diving (done without air tanks) were to share a bottle of champagne underwater. When the bottle was uncorked, bubbles would escape. When the wine was poured into glasses, some of it would get there without dissolving into water. After that, it would be anyone's guess. So many things are, really.

Although ''The Big Blue'' was made in English by a French director, it does not show signs of being workable in any tongue, save perhaps for the language of the briny deep. And a lot of what happens here would beggar even a dolphin's understanding. But the film has a handsome, expensive look and a charmingly inscrutable manner that make it easier to take than it would have been staged more solemnly. The scenery is glorious, and that doesn't hurt either.

''The Big Blue'' begins in gray, with a prologue showing Jacques as a young boy learning to dive off the craggy coast of Greece; here and in other parts of the film, Mr. Besson uses spectacular helicopter shots that speed bracingly across the surface of the water. Later on, when Jacques has grown up and the footage has blossomed into full color, the film roams from Peru to the Riviera, New York to Sicily in search of purpose. Jacques is reunited with his childhood rival Enzo, now grown into a raffish diving champion (and played very drolly by Jean Reno). He also meets Joanna (Rosanna Arquette), an American insurance executive who is sent by Mr. Besson's devil-may-care story (with a screenplay co-written by Robert Garland) from the midst of a llama herd to the scenic cliffs of Taormina. The film doesn't try overly hard to explain her presence, and that's just as well.

Miss Arquette is attractively game in this role, but the sad fact is that she's playing second fiddle to fish. Jacques is in love with the deep, as is Enzo, and the film's most heartfelt passages are those that observe these two diving rivals as they brave the watery depths. The film's undersea footage has a powerful otherworldly quality, much as if it were unfolding in outer space, as indeed it might be. Mr. Besson clearly intends a mystical element to all this, but the beautifully filmed scenes of Jacques cavorting with dolphins are at least as nutty as they are picturesque.

''The Big Blue'' opened yesterday at Loew's 84th Street and a great many other theaters, where it is being advertised as ''The Motion Picture Event of the Summer.'' Since it's not a mainstream film by any stretch of the imagination, this is misleading even by movie-ad standards.

''The Big Blue'' is rated PG (''Parental Guidance Suggested''). It contains brief nudity. A FISH STORY THE BIG BLUE directed by Luc Besson; written by Mr. Besson and Robert Garland; director of photography, Carlo Varini; edited by Olivier Mauffroy; production designer, Dan Weil; produced by Patrice Ledoux; released by Columbia Pictures. At Movieland, Broadway at 47th Street; the Sutton, 57th Street at Third Avenue. Running time: 119 minutes. This film is rated PG. Joanna . . . Rosanna Arquette Jacques Mayol . . . Jean-Marc Barr Enzo Molinari . . . Jean Reno Dr. Laurence . . . Paul Shenar Novelli . . . Sergio Castellito Uncle Louis . . . Jean Bouise Roberto . . . Marc Duret Duffy . . . Griffin Dunne

Spirituality is not a subject I can breezily write about or easily embrace. This isn't only because I'm a militant atheist. It's because spiritual matters are intensely personal and are more connected with one's own emotional spaghetti intertwined with feelings that are strictly indefinable. The unimaginative souls credit the known – Jesus and his ilk – for blessing them with such profound feelings of serenity and enlightenment but there is a part of the human experience that must recognise that we are able to feel beyond which is mundane and ordinary and even rational. I adore the meaning of the word 'enthusiasm' – the god within. Now that's my kind of deity. The Big Blue is a movie suffused with the spiritual, crammed with the non-corporeal, the connection to nature (in hero Jacques' case, the ocean) that offers us ethereal sustenance beyond our nagging earthly necessities. And if you think that lot's pretentious, I've not even started.

Only in a movie can you present a final act of such brutal and overwhelming selfishness (there had to be a 'fish' in there somewhere) that constitutes the ending of this film and manage to have it imbued with a spiritual grandeur. It's an extraordinary coup de cinema. A brilliant novelist might manage it but in lesser directorial hands, the ending of The Big Blue is a downer in every sense, literal or otherwise. Young director and writer Luc Besson knows what he's doing (you get a sense he's lived some of it) and the surprising emotions he conjures up in his extraordinary film continue to astonish me (and I have seen dolphins before on film, edited quite a few too but none quite as touching as Besson's own metaphorical sirens, the finned guides for Jacques' transcendent 'homecoming').

The Big Blue is a movie about a dry-dock dolphin aching to get back to the sea despite the awkward fact of his human body's land-based limitations. He has personal connections, family and a friend, but very few real relationships, aspects of normal human life that seem beyond or even below this web footed Adonis. One gets the sense he only has a best friend because of the continual competition between him and bon viveur and egoist, fellow free diver, Enzo. This competitive "I-can-dive-deeper-and-hold-my-breath-for-longer," routine holds Enzo in place for all of his life while to Jacques, the competitions are simply opportunities to commune with the deep blue sea. There is never any pride or joy at being the best, just the deep contentment at being where he feels he belongs. What we, and Jacques' human lover Johana, call dark and cold, Jacques calls home. And it's that calling that defines Jacques through whose eyes (and gills) we must be prepared to experience The Big Blue . Keep your rational humanity to the fore and Luc Besson's wondrous magic spell of a film is broken. Get inside Jacques and the film floats tantalisingly in front of you whilst you can almost taste the brine. Literal readings of the text are to be frowned upon. To get The Big Blue you have to be prepared to get wet, sexual allusion implied. I'll not bog you down in the Freudian analysis though this movie is rich pickings for those of that bent. I mean for goodness' sake, a man penetrates that which is wet and goes very deep. It's Freud 101 as the Americans might say. Let's get back to practicalities and fond memories.

In the late-80s, I worked with an assistant who was utterly besotted with the, admittedly, über-handsome actor Jean Marc Barr (playing free diver Jacques Mayol). When I told her that he lived locally, it was all she could do to hold herself together. Each lunch trip into town, her eyes would be on stalks waiting to see if he'd simply walk past her (in slow motion with goggles and a red wet suit, one presumes). I'd seen him in a deli on several occasions and unless he was on a year's holiday, I'd made the leap he lived in West Hampstead or thereabouts while studying in London. My assistant was a girl who could pull men's eyes, hearts and souls in her direction without so much as a come hither glance. She had that confident beauty that only intelligent, centred women possess. But such was the power of Barr to reduce even her to a quivering mess of self-consciousness.

Barr possesses the sort of sculpted attraction that other men desire and of which they are darkly envious. I know some who reject it out of hand but nevertheless Barr is blessed with what a great many women classify as archetypal good looks. I consistently ask my partner if so and so is attractive as I'm curious what floats peoples' boats. She had little hesitation in earmarking Monsieur Barr as someone she would have pursued without any real forethought. Hell, my assistant named her first child 'Blue'... Not sure this was a reference but you never know. This alluring young woman was working with someone just as smitten by an onscreen personality – me. I was nursing a major crush on a young actress I'd first seen on American TV in a film directed by indy favourite John Sayles, Baby It's You . Rosanna Arquette's character, sensuality, charm, innocence and sheer sex appeal knocked me flat. She had that off-centre attraction that made you think you were the only one who could recognise it. Nonsense, of course. And blast it, she definitely didn't live locally.

I'd known Luc Besson's work from his full feature debut, the quietly impressive Le Dernier Combat and I was so-so regarding Subway . I'd had enough pre-publicity oomph for me to work myself into a lather over The Big Blue . Arquette was in it so I was along for the ride regardless of its merits. For those of you yet untouched by Besson's very personal but still big movie (the biggest French money maker that decade apparently), it's a story about a chronically socially awkward young man (Barr) who has an affinity with the sea and dolphins in particular. His rival, the brash and entertaining Jean Reno (Enzo), invites him to the world free diving championships where he establishes a relationship with Arquette, an insurance agent struck by Barr's striking magnetism while on a claim investigation in South America. But Barr's attraction to his ocean and dolphins is enough to keep him from enjoying what this reviewer at the time would have regarded as heaven, sharing his life with Rosanna Arquette.

In all respects, The Big Blue is a confident piece of work whose running time, in its eventual 'director's cut' version, on the Blu Ray release, is a not inconsiderable 168 minutes. That's a little short of three hours but the characters are sufficiently intriguing, the mise en scene assured and the location-hopping worthy of a Bond picture. It looks gorgeous, sumptuous even. And of all the Gallic cheek to present the first scene of the movie in black and white, a movie that emphasizes colour in almost every other way. It's curious that the flashback we get to that time when Jacques was a child is in colour. Is this Besson saying something about memory? We start off in Greece when as a child Jacques was in some competition with a larger child (the casting of the leads as children here is almost ridiculously spot on). Jacques was evidently a water baby even then but Enzo was bigger and claimed the burly bully status. After a tragic accident, Jacques is left helplessly clawing at the surface of the water, the element that entrances him and yet the same element that has claimed his father.

As we cut forward, in an explosion of music (more on that contribution a little later), we bring on Enzo, now all grown up into the dashingly cool and top heavy French icon, Monsieur Jean Reno. I will not sing this man's praises (I'll let Slarek do that in the Leon review) but I will remind you that even the coolest have their weaker moments. I mean even Harrison Ford has advertised cars in Europe. He owns half of Wyoming. Maybe he's saving up for the other half. Reno's appearances in commercials (yes, the UPS ones trade on his Gallic large nosed USP and aren't as horrendous as some out there) are those I find difficult to accept from any artist unless the money's not the issue. But we'll gloss over that. Reno is bloody marvellous as Enzo. With a voice that spent a significant period in Rustynailville, he grates out his lines in a lower register that teases the sub woofers. He's larger than life and happy to play the role of the lesser man. Well, perhaps happy is too strong a word but Enzo knows his limits and he knows Jacques is as close to dolphin as any man could be. Even Enzo cannot compete but demands to do so to keep testing himself. Their relationship is the only thing anchoring Barr to the earth. Not even a heterosexual relationship with Rosanna Arquette can do that for Monsieur Mayol. So to me, he's beyond saving...

Barr is above the movie in the same way his soul is below the waves. He is so disconnected to human affairs even in the act of sex he seems to be the passive participant. This works, of course, because if you took Barr's performance as a human being, he'd be the most selfish creature on the planet. His treatment of his lover is pretty reprehensible (he does silence a great deal) and his understanding of the needs of others is pretty much in the minus number category but. Big but. When he smiles, it lights up his soul and that's what Arquette responds to. And when he's underwater he's a different animal. One of the most frustrating scenes of the film is Arquette trying to tell him something important. She leaps into the water (his element) and he is sufficiently intrigued to join her but then the conversation becomes one way as he frolics on the surface breaking her heart with his colossal insensitivity but then he's not all human... Remember that.

Arquette seems to have come under some fire for being miscast as Johana Baker. Yes, there are moments in the film where experience might have upped the performances a little but remember, Besson wasn't even 30 when he directed The Big Blue (and Arquette was five months younger). This isn't to excuse the actress's occasional unease with some of her scenes (frankly I just adore Arquette and even in a role that requires her to be smitten enough to travel all around the world, she acquits herself well). And commercially she was pretty hot being nominally the first billed star of the movie. But she also has a thankless task. She has to be the human element in a movie about a dolphin. She has to be the voice of reason in a film about spiritual matters and that's always going to tie her down, sympathy wise. She was dealt an uneasy hand but played it well regardless.

The one element of The Big Blue that seems to do everything right takes the movie in a crushing bear hug and drives up the spirituality, forces those tears out and just makes you smile with the sheer impetuosity of its grandstanding. The only person credited in the front credits with his own stand out box is composer Eric Serra and played on the right kit, his music is stunning. It manages to retain the emotional while jettisoning convention. The instruments don't even seem to want to be mixed together but somehow it all works gloriously. We get the longing, the hurt and the distance but we also get Jacques' soul. Serra's contribution to the cinema of Luc Besson cannot be underestimated. One of my fondest memories of a screening of Nikita in London many years ago was having a short discussion with a friend I was with in a party of five. We idly wondered if Serra had done the score for Nikita . We were seats apart. The movie was two seconds in and as we heard the oh so distinctive Serra main theme, we both leaned forward, looked at each other and mouthed "Yes!" in sync. Nice.

The Big Blue is a film with heart but that heart beats underwater and you have to adjust your own wiring to fully appreciate that. But if you do, you will be richly rewarded.

Let's be honest, of all the early Besson films, this is the one that stands to benefit most from the Blu-ray treatment, it's sunshine soaked exteriors, glorious locations and hypnotic underwater photography just crying out for a top notch HD image. Well that pretty much what they've got. Fabulous colour reproduction, deliciously crisp detail and near-perfect contrast make this a delight for the eyes in the sunlit exteriors, and although the night scenes are less striking, they are still impressive, with the blacks staying solid and shadow detail good. Grain is intermittently visible but is never a problem.

The PCM 48 stereo track is clear with a reasonable dynamic range, and at it best on underwater sound effects and music (which packs some serious wallop in places if you run the lower frequencies through the sub), which co-incidentally is where you'll also hear the best use of frontal separation. The dialogue is in French with optional English subtitles. Ah.

And it's here that we encounter the Achilles heel of this otherwise very fine Blu-ray release. Another Optimum licence from French distributor Gaumont, the disc inevitably includes the French dub, but is inexplicably missing the original English language track. Now I know this is a French made film with one French lead actor (and another who is fluent in the language), but this was famously Besson's first English language film and almost all of the dialogue was delivered and recorded in English. If you're looking for confirmation then observe the mismatch between mouth movements and dialogue and check out the English language track on 20th Century-Fox's DVD for comparison – you can even find supporting evidence in the making-of documentary on this very disc. This means the release is missing the film's original soundtrack, a frankly inexcusable omission and really does detract from total enjoyment of the film, particularly when Rosanna Arquette's character switches from her occasional English to French and someone else's voice steps in to replace that of the actress. Reno and Barr appear to have dubbed their own voices.

L'Aventure de Grand Bleu (97:00) 576p A feature length behind-the-scenes documentary transferred at 576p, presumably from the French 2-disc special edition DVD, and a little fuzzy on picture detail. A leisurely-paced stroll through the shoot, with voice-over comments provided by Luc Besson, Jean Reno and Jean-Marc Barr, the action is often observed from a distance but there's plenty of interesting stuff here, particularly in the filming of specific scenes (including the water-in-the-bedroom sequence and the ice dive) and the news that the two leads did all their own diving and trained extensively to be able to hold their breath for extended periods and descend to 30 metres without breathing apparatus. "Obviously, once you go past 30 metres," observes Reno, "you can feel you'd have to be as mad as the real-life Mayol to go any further." Interesting to learn that Barr could only hold his breath for 40 seconds when first hired but had, in Besson's words, "an aquatic way of moving," while Reno in the water was "as stiff as a board." Also intriguing is that Besson cast his leading men based partly on their physique, believing that Jacques would be a skinny man who dives with his head, whereas the muscular Enzo would rely on his lungs. There's a genuinely touching moment as the crew dance in unison for a tearfully departing Rosanna Arquette, and a funny sequence in which Besson and Reno squeakily engage in banter after inhaling helium. Initially targeted at a French audience only, the adaptation for the UK market produces some minor absurdities, as dialogue is delivered in English, then is translated into French through voice-over, which subtitles then translate back to English.

The Big Blue – Theatrical Version (137:26) Included as an extra is the original theatrical cut of the film, which is of the same quality and effectively the same transfer, the different edits likely achieved through branching. I've no intention of going through the differences shot by shot – the director's cut does not drastically alter any aspect of the story, but does allow many scenes to play out in more detail. I've long ago accepted the director's cut – or version longue as it was known as on its release – as the definitive version, and returning to the earlier edit simply feels like someone's been at it with scissors. Mind you, this is still preferable to the original American release, which trimmed the running time to 118 minutes, added a happy ending and replaced Eric Serra's oh-so-right score with one by Bill Conti.

Also included are two trailers for the film, which are letterboxed within a 4:3 frame and 576p. Both are interesting, with the opening teaser (0:43) neatly ambiguous, and the American theatrical trailer (1:47) sporting the dialogue as it was recorded and the wrong music.

The Big Blue is a still enthralling and sometimes hypnotically realised story of friendship, love and obsession, with only the cartoonish presentation of the Japanese divers coming across as misjudged, and even then we're talking a two minute sequence in a near three-hour film. The transfer is as lovely as you'd hope, but the absence of the original English language track is a serious omission that prevents this from being the definitive version it should be, particularly given the inclusion of two cuts of the film and a substantial extra feature. There's an irony in the decision to shoot in English anyway, which was probably taken with an eye on the American market, the one country in which the film flopped on its original release, and there's almost the sense that in omitting the English language track, Gaumont were reclaiming the film for the French language in which it might otherwise have been shot. But in releasing the same disc onto the UK market without the restoration of the said English soundtrack, Optimum have really dropped the ball. If this doesn't bother you – and frankly it should – then you should be delighted with this disc, but despite the splendid picture quality, that missing audio track makes it hard to recommend. A damned shame.

Turn autoplay off

Turn autoplay on

Please activate cookies in order to turn autoplay off

Jump to content [s]
Jump to site navigation [0]
Jump to search [4]
Terms and conditions [8]
Your activity
Email subscriptions
Account details
Linked services
Press office
Guardian Print Centre
Guardian readers' editor
Observer readers' editor
Terms of service
Privacy policy
Advertising guide
Digital archive
Digital edition
Guardian Weekly
Buy Guardian and Observer photos

Today's paper

Main section
G2 features
Comment and debate
Editorials, letters and corrections
Other lives
EducationGuardian
Life & style
Environment

The Big Blue

Details: 1988, France, Cert 15, 119 mins

Direction: Luc Besson

With: Jean Marc Barr , Jean-Marc Barr and Rosanna Arquette

User reviews

Today's best video, the week in tv, 'get your arse out, mate', spanish football player's stunning solo goal, whitewater kayaking: 'i wanted to spend every day on the river'.

Most viewed

Last 24 hours

2. Star Wars Episode VII: what we know as shooting starts
3. The Goonies sequel confirmed by director Richard Donner
4. After Gremlins and The Goonies, what other 80s films need a remake?
5. 2 States and screen kisses: 'Bollywood is cranking it up a notch'
More most viewed
2. Quiz: Can you match each of these Bond villains with their own evil plot?
3. Russian cinemas fined for showing The Wolf of Wall Street
4. 2 States and screen kisses: 'Bollywood is cranking it up a notch'
5. After Gremlins and The Goonies, what other 80s films need a remake?
All today's stories

Film search

Latest reviews.

Noah review â 'a preposterous but endearingly unhinged epic'

Russell Crowe wrestles angels and demons in Darren Aronofsky's $125m mashup of the ancient story of Noah, writes Mark Kermode

Honour review â Shan Khan's 'conflicted' first feature

The Double review â Richard Ayoade's dark doppelganger drama

Divergent review â lacks lustre and grit

A Story of Children and Film review â Mark Cousins's 'spine-tingling' visual essay

The Big Blue Reviews

35 Metascore
2 hr 48 mins
Drama, Action & Adventure
Watchlist Where to Watch

Writer-director Luc Besson's tale about a diver (Jean-Marc Barr) obsessed with the sea. Johana: Rosanna Arquette. Enzo: Jean Reno. Dr. Laurence: Paul Shenar. Duffy: Griffin Dunne.

Heralded as a wunderkind since his debut at age 24 with LE DERNIER COMBAT, French director Luc Besson combined his two great passions--movies and the sea--in this epic mystical adventure. Greece, 1965: Two boys, Italian-born Enzo Molinari and French-born Jacques Mayol, grow up together in a small seaside town. Both are expert divers, but while Enzo is driven by the need to be the best, Jacques' relationship with the sea and its creatures, especially dolphins, is more spiritual. After Jacques' father is killed in a diving accident, the boys are separated and lose touch. As an adult, bon vivant Enzo (Jean Reno) becomes a world-champion free diver: Free divers use no equipment, competing to see who can dive the deepest before needing to come up for air. Jacques (Jean-Marc Barr), meanwhile, has become an ascetic recluse whose closest relationships are with dolphins, though while doing a job that involves recovering scientific equipment from an icy lake in the Peruvian mountains, he meets a potential human love interest in flaky American insurance adjuster Joanna Cross (Rosannna Arquette, who gives a truly dreadful performance). Knowing that his only real diving competition is Jacques, Enzo tracks him down and persuades him to compete in the next competition, in Taormina, Italy; Joanna scrambles to be there as well. Jacques wins the contest, setting in motion a deadly  though superficially friendly  rivalry with Enzo. Jacques knows he'll always beat Enzo, while Enzo will never stop trying to regain his title. Given the pressures free diving places on the human anatomy, which increase as divers descend to ever-greater depths, the competition is bound to end in tragedy. Jacques' burgeoning relationship with Joanna is equally complicated: Though she's fascinated by his dreaminess, her desire for normal life is bound to conflict with his mystical communion with the sea. Inspired in part by the new-agey philosophies of real-life "guru of free diving" Jacques Mayol (who lends his name to Barr's character), this was Besson's first film in English, and was the opening-night presentation at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival. There are two very different versions of THE BIG BLUE available in the U.S.: the 119-minute version released in 1988, and the nearly three-hour version released in France in 1989 (the original French version ran about 130 minutes) and in the U.S. in 2000 as the "Director's Cut." The film was a smash hit in France from the time of its first release, and later developed an intense, worldwide cult following. Like all of Besson's films, THE BIG BLUE is deeply adolescent; its impact is visceral rather than intellectual. No matter which version you see, the story doesn't really make sense, but in the director's cut the movie's emotional impact is considerably heightened. Most of the footage lost in the shorter versions comes out of the middle of the film; it explores Enzo and Jacques' renewed friendship and the vagaries of Jacques and Joanna's romance. Certain minor characters, notably Jacques' uncle (Jean Bouise) and Enzo's movie-star girlfriend (Valentina Vargas) have considerably more screen time in the long version, and a thematic thread involving metaphorical mermaids is developed. The 119-minute American version was also rescored by composer Bill Conti, and its ending was reworked into something that could be called happy, while the longer version restores Besson's darkly romantic, original conclusion.

The Big Blue

Film details, brief synopsis, cast & crew, jean-marc barr, rosanna arquette, paul shenar, sergio castellitto, technical specs.

A visionary epic of obsession and beauty about Jacques Mayol, the handsome diver who is so at home in the water that he seems only half-human. Jacques' best friends are a family of playful porpoises and Enzo Molinari, his swaggering Italian diving rival. Jacques and Enzo grew up together in the Mediterranean, and remain lifelong friends despite a fierce battle for the top prize in the world free diving championships, where divers compete to see who can descend to the furthest depths of the sea with no equipment other than their own courage and determination. But when the dreamer Jacques falls in love with the beautiful Johanna, he finds himself torn between the damsel and the deep blue sea.

Jean Bouise

Griffin dunne, andreas voutsinas, valentina vargas, kimberly beck, patrick fontana, alessandra vazzoler, bruce guerre-berthelot, gregory forstner, geoffrey carey, claude besson, marika gevaudan, jan rouiller, peter semler, jacques levy, andre germe, ronald teuhi, rosario campese, franco diogene, tredessa dalton, constantin alexandrov, pierre-alain degarrigues, claude robin, paul herman, nicolas maltos, marco planceon, abdul abbott, francesco angulo, franco ballati, jacques barbazange, nicolette barr, patrick barthelemy, pierre befve, javier bello, alain bernard, sophie bester, marcus biehler, dominik borde, fred bouchaour, jean-marc bour, blandine boyer, stephane breton, judith lyn brown, fanchon brule, pierre calamel, patrick camboulive, blanche cardinale, jerome chalou, irene champendal, nathalie chéron, elisabeth chochoy, myra-lee cohen, michel conche, michele constantinides, elisabeth couque, catherine crassac, stefan czapsky, alain henri darthou, jean-louis darthou, marylene dastugue, jonathan decamp, michel dechaud, victor denicola, monty diamond, mario dorio, thierry dormoy, jean-francois drigeard, christophe dural, celmar engel, pierre excoffier, pascale fernandez, flaviana ferri, bertrand fevre, jean-pierre fevrier, genevieve feyralade, william flageollet, gilles floquet, david craig forrest, barthelemy fougea, celestia fox, robert garland, christian gazio, stephane gedigier, francois gentit, avra georgiou, jacques-thomas gerard, nicos giannopoulos, jerome giroux, susan goulder, bernard grenet, xavier grenet, patrice grisolet, françois groult, guy guermouth, marie guesnier, magali guidasci, anne guillard, alain guille, richard guille, thierry guilmard, quincy gunderson, dennis hahn, patrick halpine, elisabeth hickox, didier hoarau, michael jackman, mike jackman, vincent jeannot, dale pierce johnson, michel jullien, lynn kamerin, malika khelfa, gerard lamps, daniel lamy, georges latouche, isabelle laurenchet, francois laurent, jean-yves laurent, jean-louis lebras, patrice ledoux, jean-michel legarrec, denis leger, mimi lempicka, john leonidas, arnaud lepetit, jerome levy, thomas levy-loeb, monique lormoy, georges louisos, jessica madueno, gabrielle mairesse, benedicte mallet, annie marciniak, gary marcus, ann f markel, isabelle martin, jean-pierre mas, olivier mauffroy, marc maurette, jacques mayol, silvia merino, claude meyer, yann michel, patrick millet, franck miniconi, marc mitrofanoff, jacques moisant, marion monestier, pascal moreau, brigitte nierhaus, jenny panoutsopoulou, michael papadopoulos, monique pautas, cyrille perron, christian petron, patricia pierangeli, lissa pillu, jacqueline porel, eliberto prado, eugenio prado, giuseppe punturo, dennis radesky, gina randazzo, martine rapin, jean-claude reux, mandy rodriguez, pascal rose, bob rosenthal, herve rotblatt, marcel rousseau, coralie roy, patricia saalburg, gilles samanos, felix sauter, k c schulbert, cathy scott, valerie simonin, catherine sine, nicos skouras, larry steinberg, roberto tello, chronis theocharis, j miller tobin, roberto todeschi, abel toledo, michael trim, bryan unger, g bryan unger, dora valsmaki, carlo varini, giovanni varini, antoine vaton, eric vidart-loeb, stephane vinciguerra, victor zolfo, miscellaneous notes.

Released in United States Summer August 19, 1988

Re-released in United States July 14, 2000

Re-released in United States July 28, 2000

Released in United States on Video February 23, 1989

Re-released in United States on Video November 1, 1994

Re-released in United States on Video August 15, 2000

Released in United States November 1988

Shown at FestRio in Brazil November 17-26, 1988.

The film, based on the deep-sea diving rivalry between Jacques Mayol and Enzo Majorca, was originally blocked from release in Italy pending the outcome of a lawsuit brought by Majorca. He claimed the film cast his character in a bad light.

For the first US release of the film, distributor Weintraub Entertainment changed the original soundtrack, inserting a music score by Bill Conti, and altered the film's ending against director Luc Besson's wishes.

Film ran in Paris for 171 weeks.

CinemaScope

Re-released (long version) in France 1990.

Re-released (long version) in Stockholm February 1, 1991.

Re-released in United States July 28, 2000 (director's cut; Los Angeles)

Released in United States November 1988 (Shown at FestRio in Brazil November 17-26, 1988.)

Re-released in United States July 14, 2000 (director's cut; New York City)

Your Browser is Not Supported

To view this content, please use one of the following compatible browsers:

Safari v11+

Firefox Quantum

Microsoft Edge

Letterboxd — Your life in film

Forgotten username or password ?

Start a new list…
Add all films to a list…
Add all films to watchlist

Add to your films…

Press Tab to complete, Enter to create

A moderator has locked this field.

Add to lists

Where to watch

The big blue.

1988 Directed by Andrew Horn

Not to be confused with Luc Besson's film of the same title from the same year. Documentarian Andrew Horn's second narrative feature.

Jim Neu David Brisbin Taunie Vrenon John Erdman Amy Hill Sheila McLaughlin José Rafael Arango Kirsten Bates Dan Crozier

Director Director

Andrew Horn

Writers Writers

Andrew Horn Jim Neu

Releases by Date

13 feb 1988, releases by country.

Premiere Source: IMDB (Berlin)

100 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Evan “Kaizō Haya-shill” Pincus ★★★★½

A noir where the missing answer at the center is the gulf between speech and who’s being spoken to, the difference between the sign and the signified, the meaning of the work of conversation in the age of magnetic reproduction, the question of what or whom exactly is being talked around. One of the recurring phrases in Mary Margaret O’Hara’s Year In Song is “joy is the aim,” which by the end of the song, gets twisted into a frantic loop - “-joy is the aim, eh, joy is the aim, eh-“ - and to my ear, it always sounds like a proclamation that “joy is the image.” Hell, for all I know, it might be! The Big Blue reminded me…

Review by erik reeds ★★★★½ 3

my fucking shit man

Review by Evan “Kaizō Haya-shill” Pincus ★★★★½ 2

Probably the most “noir understander” movie of the 80’s?

Review by Mark Asch ★★★★½

The apotheosis of downtown 80s Club 57 retro-chic camp and punk/romantic fatalism, an aesthetic always half-aspiring to noir—that Pop Art wallpaper & those painted cityscape backdrops, like Golden Age opening credits; the Hopperesque neon of the Moondance Diner, as Koch-era scary and ennui-stricken as Sleepwalk; Lounge Lizard Evan Lurie's neonoir score is as good as his brother John's score for the neonoir Variety. Jim Neu's script is florid and taut (and as an actor, he has the grativas of Fred Gwynne in The Cotton Club and the sallow teeth of Joe Spinell), Stoppard-esque pingponging thythms and pure stylization, at once hollow and word-perfect, transcending the normal NYC DIY cinema impulse to scuzzy dress-up. Love it love it love it.

Review by Susannah Gruder ★★★★ 1

What “The Big Blue” is, exactly, isn’t entirely clear, but according to the eponymous jazz tune that plays throughout the film, it “isn’t something that you want.” With a script penned by Jim Neu, who also contributed his dispassionate dialogue to Doomed Love, The Big Blue tells the story of Jack (David Brisbin), a private detective who begins his journey confident in his role as a bystander, maintaining a safe distance from the shady dealings he’s observing from afar. Neu himself plays Howard, whose wife (Sheila McLaughlin) hires Jack out of fear he’s having an affair. Jack instead finds Howard at a bar, pretending to have a “normal” conversation with Max, his co-conspirator in a drug deal. It’s not long before he’s led into their unsavory underworld by Max’s lover Carmen (Taunie VreNon), the femme fatale at risk of becoming the ultimate victim of Max and Howard’s scheme.

Full write-up on Screen Slate: www.screenslate.com/features/1600

Review by Rock Hyrax 2

A noir about noir filled with dialogue about dialogue. Much as I adore the artificiality of Doomed Love, that survives by its pure emotional core, but for all the melodramatic gestures here, I couldn't form the same kind of connection. Some totally gorgeous precision double-exposure set design here though. Even if this wasn't the one that clicked, it does make me wish Andrew Horn made more features.

basically the platonic ideal of what cinema should be - inventive, funny, explosive. always feel like you're having a great time and i rarely feel as though it's possible to make something this parallel to everything else work on its own terms this well. now if only other people could see it!

Review by Nick Newman

Ain’t a real cinephile until you and a homie make up more than 1/15th a movie’s Letterboxd activity in one night.

Review by Chris Van Horn ★★★★

"...understanding everything is overrated."

Digital - Spectacle

Review by antchassi

shout out steve

Review by 🧃

you can run away from your problem, but you can't run away from your mood.

- David Brisbin also had appearance in Seinfeld Episode 066 - The Puffy Shirt ! - The Big Blue : Lyrics by Jim Neu, music by Lenny Pickett, from the 1988 film, The Big Blue, by Andrew Horn. Deborah Auer performed this on Monday night, July 18, 2016 at Pangea, NYC. Performed with pianist Neal Kirkwood and bassist, Lindsey Horner. Video by Jacob Burckhardt. - THE BIG BLUE (Andrew Horn, 1988) dir. Andrew Horn, 1988 100 mins. United States. In English.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15 – 7 PM w/director of photography Carl Teitelbaum and Andrew Horn’s longtime partner Hisami Kuroiwa for Q&A (This event is $10.) TUESDAY,…

Select your preferred poster

Turn Your Curiosity Into Discovery

Latest facts.

The Best AI Photo Editor of 2024 A Comprehensive Review

6 Facts You Didnt Know About Ecommerce Call Center Outsourcing

45 facts about the movie the big blue.

Written by Kendre Crossland

Modified & Updated: 04 Mar 2024

Reviewed by Jessica Corbett

The Big Blue is a captivating and visually stunning movie that has captured the hearts of audiences around the world. Directed by Luc Besson, this 1988 film takes viewers on an immersive journey into the world of deep-sea diving and explores the complex relationships and deep-rooted passions of its characters. The movie tells the story of two childhood friends, Jacques and Enzo, who share a love for the ocean and compete against each other in the world of free diving. As their friendship is tested and their deepest desires are brought to the surface, The Big Blue delves into themes of competition, adventure, love, and self-discovery. In this article, we will delve into 45 fascinating facts about The Big Blue, giving you an inside look into the making of this cinematic masterpiece.

Key Takeaways:

Dive into the world of “The Big Blue,” a visually stunning French film that explores the competitive spirit of deep-sea diving and the complex relationships between its characters.
Experience the awe-inspiring beauty of the ocean and the human spirit through breathtaking underwater cinematography, a captivating soundtrack, and thought-provoking themes in “The Big Blue.”

“The Big Blue” is a 1988 French film.

Directed by Luc Besson, this visually stunning movie explores the world of deep-sea diving and the competitive spirit of the divers.

The film stars Jean-Marc Barr and Jean Reno.

With their brilliant performances, Barr and Reno bring to life the complex relationship between the two main characters, Jacques Mayol and Enzo Molinari.

The Big Blue was a commercial success in France.

Upon its release, the film became one of the highest-grossing French films of all time, captivating audiences with its breathtaking underwater scenes.

The movie was filmed in various locations.

From Greece to Italy to the Bahamas, the stunning cinematography takes viewers on a journey through different breathtaking underwater landscapes.

The Big Blue features an enchanting soundtrack.

Eric Serra’s mesmerizing musical score perfectly complements the ethereal beauty and mystery of the ocean .

The story is inspired by the real-life rivalry of two divers.

Jacques Mayol and Enzo Maiorca, renowned free divers, provided the inspiration for the characters and their competitive dynamic in the film.

The underwater scenes were meticulously choreographed.

The deep-sea sequences were carefully planned and executed to ensure the safety of the actors and capture the awe-inspiring beauty of the underwater world.

The Big Blue won multiple awards at the César Awards.

The film was recognized for its excellence in categories such as Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Music .

The movie explores themes of friendship, love, and obsession.

Through the characters of Jacques and Enzo, the film delves into the complexities of these relationships and the consequences of pursuing one’s passion at all costs.

The Big Blue has gained a cult following.

Over the years, the film has garnered a dedicated fan base who appreciate its unique blend of stunning visuals, captivating storytelling, and powerful performances.

The diving scenes were shot with real free divers.

To add authenticity to the film, experienced free divers were used to perform the challenging underwater sequences.

There are two versions of the film.

The original French version runs for 132 minutes, while the international version is slightly shorter at 118 minutes.

The movie draws on the mystical aspect of the ocean.

It explores the deep connection between human beings and the sea , emphasizing the spiritual journey undertaken by the characters.

The Big Blue showcases the dangers of extreme diving.

While portraying the beauty of the underwater world, the film also highlights the risks and physical toll involved in pushing the boundaries of free diving.

The film tackles environmental issues.

Through subtle references, “The Big Blue” raises awareness about the importance of preserving marine ecosystems and the impact of human activities on the ocean.

The Big Blue was initially met with mixed reviews.

Although some critics praised it for its stunning visuals, others felt that the storyline was lacking and the pacing was slow.

The movie was a box office success in several countries.

Despite the initial mixed reviews, “The Big Blue” went on to become a hit in markets around the world, attracting audiences with its unique premise.

The Big Blue had a troubled production history.

Due to budget constraints and creative differences, the film’s production faced numerous challenges, resulting in delays and changes to the original script.

The film explores the limits of the human body.

Through the characters’ extraordinary diving abilities, “The Big Blue” pushes the boundaries of what humans are capable of achieving.

The Big Blue is renowned for its stunning underwater cinematography.

Using innovative filming techniques and equipment, the movie captures the beauty and vastness of the ocean like never before.

The Big Blue received an extended director’s cut.

In 1997, Luc Besson released a longer version of the film, adding over 40 minutes of previously unseen footage.

The movie features breathtaking diving competitions.

From the exhilarating free diving competitions in the Greek islands to the nail-biting climax, the film keeps audiences on the edge of their seats.

The Big Blue explores the psychological aspects of diving.

It delves into the mental challenges and emotional turmoil experienced by the characters as they venture deeper into the ocean.

The film’s production faced legal issues.

Luc Besson and the production company were sued by two screenwriters who claimed that their script had been stolen to create “The Big Blue.”

The Big Blue showcases the beauty of marine life.

From encounters with majestic dolphins to vibrant coral reefs, the film celebrates the rich biodiversity found in the world’s oceans.

The movie has a dedicated fan base.

Even decades after its release, “The Big Blue” continues to captivate viewers and has become a beloved cult classic among diving enthusiasts and film lovers alike.

The Big Blue features stunning underwater photography.

The film’s visual effects team used innovative techniques to capture the ethereal beauty of the underwater world, earning them praise and recognition.

The movie explores the allure of the unknown.

Through the characters’ relentless pursuit of diving deeper and setting new records, “The Big Blue” taps into the human fascination with exploring uncharted territory.

The Big Blue highlights the individual’s connection with nature.

It reminds us of the profound bond between humans and the environment and the importance of respecting and preserving the natural world.

The Big Blue showcases the risks of extreme sports.

The film serves as a cautionary tale, demonstrating the potential dangers and consequences faced by those who push themselves to the limits.

The movie’s soundtrack features renowned composer Eric Serra.

Eric Serra’s hauntingly beautiful score immerses viewers in the emotional depth of the film and adds to its unique atmosphere.

The Big Blue emphasizes the importance of self-discovery.

Through their underwater adventures, the characters embark on journeys of self-exploration, finding purpose and understanding in the depths of the ocean.

The film’s release coincided with a surge in popularity of free diving.

“The Big Blue” played a significant role in bringing the sport of free diving into the mainstream and inspiring a new generation of divers.

The Big Blue is a visually stunning masterpiece.

From the dreamlike underwater sequences to the breathtaking landscapes, the film mesmerizes viewers with its awe-inspiring imagery.

The movie raises questions about the human desire for exploration.

It prompts viewers to reflect on the motivations that drive individuals to venture into the unknown and the personal sacrifices that may come with it.

The Big Blue has influenced other films and documentaries.

Its unique portrayal of the diving world has left a lasting impact, inspiring filmmakers to explore similar themes and narratives.

The film’s screenplay was written by Luc Besson.

Luc Besson crafted a compelling and evocative story that blends elements of drama, romance, and adventure.

The Big Blue showcases the competitive nature of the diving world.

Through the rivalry between Jacques and Enzo, the film delves into the relentless pursuit of excellence and the desire to outperform one’s competitors.

The movie celebrates the beauty of the human spirit.

It depicts the resilience and determination of the characters as they overcome physical and emotional challenges in their quest for underwater glory.

The Big Blue leaves a lasting impression on its viewers.

Long after the credits roll, the film’s mesmerizing imagery and thought-provoking themes continue to resonate, making it a truly unforgettable cinematic experience.

The Big Blue showcases the power of human connection.

Amidst the breathtaking backdrop of the ocean, the film explores the bonds and relationships that are formed in the pursuit of a shared passion.

The movie’s title refers to the vastness and mystery of the ocean.

“The Big Blue” symbolizes the unknown depths and limitless possibilities found beneath the waves.

The Big Blue delves into the psychological impact of extreme sports.

It explores the toll that pushing one’s physical and mental limits can have on an individual’s well-being and relationships.

The film’s screenplay went through several iterations.

Luc Besson spent years refining the script, resulting in a captivating and emotionally resonant narrative filled with moments of profound introspection.

The Big Blue remains a timeless masterpiece.

With its powerful performances, stunning visuals, and thought-provoking themes, the film continues to captivate audiences and inspire a sense of wonder and reverence for the ocean.

In conclusion, “The Big Blue” is a mesmerizing film that captures the beauty and mystery of the ocean like no other. With its stunning cinematography, compelling storyline, and unforgettable performances, it has touched the hearts of millions of viewers worldwide. The movie not only explores the themes of friendship, love, and rivalry but also dives deep into the human connection with nature.With this article, we have uncovered 45 fascinating facts about “The Big Blue” that shed light on its making, cast, and reception. From the incredible dedication of the actors to the extensive research conducted by the director, Luc Besson, each aspect of the film was carefully orchestrated to create an immersive experience for the audience. Whether you are a die-hard fan or have yet to discover this cinematic gem, these facts will undoubtedly enhance your appreciation for “The Big Blue.”So, grab some popcorn, settle in, and experience the magic of “The Big Blue” for yourself. Prepare to be captivated by its breathtaking underwater scenes, touched by its emotional moments, and inspired by its exploration of the human spirit. Dive into this cinematic adventure and join the ranks of those who have been forever transformed by “The Big Blue.”

1. Who directed the movie “The Big Blue”?

Luc Besson directed “The Big Blue.” He is known for his visually stunning films and unique storytelling techniques.

2. When was “The Big Blue” released?

The movie was released in 1988.

3. Is “The Big Blue” based on a true story?

While the movie is not based on a specific true story, it draws inspiration from the lives of various divers and their passion for the ocean.

4. Who are the main actors in “The Big Blue”?

The main actors in “The Big Blue” are Jean-Marc Barr, Jean Reno, and Rosanna Arquette .

5. Where was “The Big Blue” filmed?

The movie was primarily filmed in Greece, Italy, and the Bahamas, showcasing stunning underwater locations.

6. What is the running time of “The Big Blue”?

The movie has a running time of 168 minutes.

7. What language is “The Big Blue” in?

The original version of the film is in French, but it has been released in multiple languages.

8. Did “The Big Blue” receive any awards?

Yes , the film won several awards, including the César Award for Best Cinematography and Best Sound.

9. Is “The Big Blue” suitable for children ?

The movie is rated PG-13 and is generally suitable for older children and adults due to its intense scenes and thematic elements.

10. Can I watch “The Big Blue” online?

Yes, “The Big Blue” is available for streaming on various platforms, including Amazon Prime and Netflix .

Was this page helpful?

Our commitment to delivering trustworthy and engaging content is at the heart of what we do. Each fact on our site is contributed by real users like you, bringing a wealth of diverse insights and information. To ensure the highest standards of accuracy and reliability, our dedicated editors meticulously review each submission. This process guarantees that the facts we share are not only fascinating but also credible. Trust in our commitment to quality and authenticity as you explore and learn with us.

Share this Fact:

Movie Reviews Simbasible

FILM DECADES
MOVIE REVIEWS

The Big Blue (1988)

…………………………………………………

The Big Blue Movie Review

The Big Blue is a 1988 adventure drama film directed by Luc Besson and starring Jean Marc-Barr , Jean Reno and Rosanna Arquette . It’s a very moving, but overlong movie.

………………………………………………….

“ ‘Cause you have to find a good reason to come back up…

and I have a hard time finding one “

…………………………………………………..

The story follows the rivalry between Enzo and Jacques , two childhood friends and now world-renowned free divers. This is a very strange movie for Luc Besson and it was his sophomore effort. It is international in locations, casting and languages spoken, but English is primarily used. That was problematic for Jean Reno as I found his English quite bad and his acting was over-the-top here.

But I still really liked his character. Enzo is so likable and fun that it’s difficult not to care for him. As for Jacques , he fares a bit worse. Though Jean Marc-Barr did a lot to transcend this somewhat thin role with his excellent, very emotive performance, the character needed a bit more substance.

It is fascinating how homoerotic this movie is and apparently Besson was totally clueless that he made such a film. You can read it as a gay metaphor – two male friends would rather choose to dive together than be with a woman. That is how the film can be interpreted and it doesn’t help that the camera focuses extensively on Jacques as Marc-Barr surely was very good-looking and sensual in the role.

But The Big Blue is still a film about the allure of the underwater world and this is where I connected with it the most as I myself love to snorkel. I got the main character’s obsession with water and the movie is beautifully sensual and incredibly atmospheric in its cinematography. It is aptly titled because it’s one of the bluest movies ever made. It’s such a delight to see. The score is also incredible and quite soothing.

Rosanna Arquette got a very thankless role due to the problematic script, but she did still deliver a solid performance and was very likable in the role. That’s the thing with this movie – it features good-looking, likable people and impressive cinematography, so the critics were too harsh toward it. Yes, it’s overlong, but it’s also poetic, dreamy and very touching in its ending. Its exoticism was undeniable and it is a perfect summer watch for sure.

The Big Blue is thematically ambiguous, overlong and slightly written in its characters. However, this is still a very underrated Luc Besson movie that features good-looking people surrounded by a lot of blue water, making the movie gorgeous to look at, sensual and very atmospheric. The ending is quite moving and the actors are all very memorable. The immense allure of diving was wonderfully showcased here and that was very relatable to me personally.

My rating – 4, more stories, the french lieutenant’s woman (1981).

Documentary

Four Daughters (2023)

A double life (1947), leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published.

You may have missed

Best TV Shows of 2023

Euphoria Specials (2020)

Talkartoons

Admission Free (1932)

Euphoria season 1 (2019).

Follow Polygon online:

Follow Polygon on Facebook
Follow Polygon on Youtube
Follow Polygon on Instagram

Filed under:

Red vs. Blue’s finale movie is still coming out, despite Rooster Teeth closing

Co-creator Burnie Burns is back to write the final episode

Share this story

Share this on Facebook
Share this on Reddit
Share All sharing options

Share All sharing options for: Red vs. Blue’s finale movie is still coming out, despite Rooster Teeth closing

Rooster Teeth may have been shuttered by Warner Bros. a few weeks ago , but that doesn’t mean that Red vs. Blue is going away. The Halo -based machinima web series that started 21 years ago is still getting its previously announced final season, despite its production company being shuttered. The trailer for the last season debuted on Thursday, revealing a release date of May 7.

The trailer brings back the series’ iconic characters for one final mission and a few last jokes — along with plenty of callbacks to the earlier seasons, it seems. The trailer’s YouTube description also comes with a slightly more revealing plot description:

When the universe’s greatest villain returns in a terrifying new form, old adversaries, the Reds and Blues of Blood Gulch, will have to set aside their differences to save the galaxy one last time.

Red vs. Blue: Restoration brings series co-creator Burnie Burns, who stepped away from the show four years ago, back as a writer; alongside director Matt Hullum. The series’ main cast will also return, including Geoff Ramsey, Gus Sorola, and more.

Restoration will be available to buy on digital platforms when it’s released on May 7, but it will not be available on Max.

The next level of puzzles.

Take a break from your day by playing a puzzle or two! We’ve got SpellTower, Typeshift, crosswords, and more.

Sign up for the newsletter Patch Notes

A weekly roundup of the best things from Polygon

Just one more thing!

Please check your email to find a confirmation email, and follow the steps to confirm your humanity.

Oops. Something went wrong. Please enter a valid email and try again.

Loading comments...

A player holding a 9 iron golf club bludgeoning an enemy character holding a pistol in the head in Fallout: New Vegas.

Fallout: New Vegas endures because of big clunky story swings

Four helldivers walking in a line with their guns in front of a blue Super Earth flag

Helldivers 2’s comedy comes from propaganda — that’s why it’s so fun

Really bad graphic for Niintentwo Swiitch

A list of stupid names for the Switch 2

Asha surrounded by the glowing blue wish orbs

Wish, Netflix’s Scoop, The Zone of Interest, and every new movie to watch this weekend

The MORS sniper rifle hovers over a black background in key art for the best sniper rifle build in Modern Warfare 3.

Best MORS loadout, class build in Modern Warfare 3

A Dragon’s Dogma 2 hero looks at a riftstone on a sunny day.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 guides, walkthroughs, and explainers

All riftstone locations in Dragon’s Dogma 2

Cast & crew

Back to Black

The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time.

Sam Taylor-Johnson
Matt Greenhalgh
Marisa Abela
Eddie Marsan
Jack O'Connell
2 Critic reviews

Amy Winehouse

Mitch Winehouse

Blake Fielder-Civil

Cynthia Winehouse

Janis Winehouse

Raye Cosbert

Nick Shymansky

A & R Manager

Aunt Melody

Perfume Paul

Island Records Senior Executive

CID Officer

Uncle Harold

Chris Taylor
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

Technical specs

Runtime 2 hours 2 minutes

More to explore

Press Herald

Account Subscription: ACTIVE

Questions about your account? Our customer service team can be reached at [email protected] during business hours at (207) 791-6000 .

Mami’s yaki onigiri are grilled rice balls worth getting to know

The Japanese snack gets filled with different ingredients at the Portland restaurant.

You are able to gift 5 more articles this month.

Anyone can access the link you share with no account required. Learn more .

With a Press Herald subscription, you can gift 5 articles each month.

It looks like you do not have any active subscriptions. To get one, go to the subscriptions page .

Loading....

Mami’s yaki onigiri. Photo by Peggy Grodinsky

I was introduced to onigiri, and yaki onigiri, 35 years ago when I lived in Japan. For years after I returned to the States, I could rarely find either, and onigiri was among the foods I missed most. Now, onigiri (sometimes, in Hawaii, called omusubi) have caught on in the U.S., but yaki onigiri remain – at least in my experience in Maine – harder to find. “Yaki” means grilled in Japanese; “onigiri” are rice balls, so these are, you got it, grilled rice balls, although often, as at Mami, they’re in the shape of a triangle.

Typically in Japan, onigiri have a small knob of filling – things like pickled plum or spicy tuna – whereas yaki onigiri are not filled. At least that’s how I remember it. But Mami fills its yaki onigiri, and I am not complaining.

At lunch one day late last month, that filling was a small amount of carrots and garlicy sweet potato rendered with pork fat. The yaki onigiri was brushed with a soy-miso glaze and chili crisp (that last also non-traditional) before it was grilled. After the snack had burnished to a deep, caramely brown, it arrived at my table, nice and warm and scattered with scallions and furikake. I broke it open with chopsticks: The medium-grain rice was moist, chewy and soft all at once, the crispy crust a perfect contrast. If “umami” were a smell rather than a taste, it’d smell like this did.

Mami, a lunch and dinner cafe, says it sells about 30 yaki onigiri a day in the winter, double that come summertime. Other recent fillings have included spicy salmon and beef with shishito peppers. In Japan, I encountered yaki onigiri mostly on nights out drinking and sharing small plates of Japanese bar food. You eat them with very fresh oshinko (Japanese pickles), said my friend Dan, who grew up in Japan, worked there for years and speaks fluent Japanese, explaining, “at the end of the meal to absorb all the alcohol. The capstone.”

For me, yaki onigiri bring back memories of (specifically) dark, snug izakayas under the train tracks in Tokyo, and (generally) being young and carefree and on a grand adventure.

And Mami’s yaki onigiri are delicious.

Yaki onigiri, $7; Mami, 339 Fore St., Portland, 207-536-4702, mamiportland.com

Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.

Enter your email and password to access comments.

Forgot Password?

Don't have a commenting profile? Create one.

Hi, to comment on stories you must create a commenting profile . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login. Already have a commenting profile? Login .

Invalid username/password.

Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.

Create a commenting profile by providing an email address, password and display name. You will receive an email to complete the registration. Please note the display name will appear on screen when you participate.

Already registered? Log in to join the discussion.

Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why .

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.

Send questions/comments to the editors.

« Previous

Definitive Brewing to host Portland Chowderfest on April 27

The Wrap: Ocotillo opens soon in West End; new coffee shop on Congress Street

The Maine Dish

Enter your email

Member Log In

Please enter your username and password below. Already a subscriber but don't have one? Click here .

Not a subscriber? Click here to see your options

IMAGES

obscurendure: Review
‎The Big Blue (1988) directed by Luc Besson • Reviews, film + cast
The Big Blue (1988)
The Big Blue
The Big Blue (1988)
The Big Blue. This movie is definitely on my top 25 list. Amazingly

VIDEO

Red, White, & Royal Blue
The Big Bull Movie Review
reading and watching Red, White and Royal Blue
Red White and Royal Blue Trailer Reaction From A Non Fan
Perfect Blue Movie Review
Red, White & Royal Blue (2023) Movie Review

COMMENTS

The Big Blue
The Big Blue Photos The Big Blue (1988) The Big Blue (1988) Jean Reno and Rosanna Arquette in a film by Luc Besson. Jean-Marc Barr and Rosanna Arquette in a film by Luc Besson. Jean-Marc Barr in a ...
The Big Blue (1988)
Eric Serra's music score is a big asset, soothing, understated and hauntingly hypnotic. There is a good deal of charm, also humour and poignancy in the writing. Best of all when it comes to 'The Big Blue' is the cinematography and the underwater scenes. The scenery is also exquisite.
The Big Blue (1988)
The Big Blue: Directed by Luc Besson. With Rosanna Arquette, Jean-Marc Barr, Jean Reno, Paul Shenar. The rivalry between Enzo and Jacques, two childhood friends and now world-renowned free divers, becomes a beautiful and perilous journey into oneself and the unknown.
The Big Blue
The Big Blue (released in some countries under the French title Le Grand Bleu) is a 1988 drama film in the French Cinéma du look visual style, made by French director Luc Besson.It is a heavily fictionalized and dramatized story of the friendship and sporting rivalry between two leading contemporary champion free divers in the 20th century: Jacques Mayol (played by Jean-Marc Barr) and Enzo ...
Le Grand bleu (1988) [The Big Blue]
An in-depth review of the film Le Grand bleu (1988), aka The Big Blue, directed by Luc Besson, featuring Rosanna Arquette, Jean-Marc Barr, Jean Reno. ... Film Review. L uc Besson's most personal film is a haunting visual elegy concerned with one man's passion to be united with the sea he loves and another man's obsession to dominate it.
‎The Big Blue (1988) directed by Luc Besson • Reviews, film + cast
Two men answer the call of the ocean in this romantic fantasy-adventure. Jacques and Enzo are a pair of friends who have been close since childhood, and who share a passion for the dangerous sport of free diving. Professional diver Jacques opted to follow in the footsteps of his father, who died at sea when Jacques was a boy; to the bewilderment of scientists, Jacques harbors a remarkable ...
The Big Blue (1988)
Film Movie Reviews The Big Blue — 1988. The Big Blue. 1988. 1h 40m. Drama. Cast. David Brisbin (Jack) Taunie Vrenon (Carmen) John Erdman (Max) Jim Neu (Monroe) Sheila McLaughlin (Myrna) José ...
The Big Blue 1988, directed by Luc Besson
The ending is the worst part of the movie: Barr rejects the pregnant Arquette in favour of going under one last time to become a dolphin-man. Such bathos reeks of cod-Camus. What lies in between ...
The Big Blue Review
15. Original Title: Big Blue, The. Luc Besson, he of the cinema du look, if not cinema du think, reached a kind of Zen-like apotheosis with this tale of men-fish, slowing down their heart-rates so ...
MOVIE REVIEW : 'The Big Blue' Sinks Deep Into Pointlessness
Aug. 19, 1988 12 AM PT. Times Staff Writer. Luc Besson's "The Big Blue" (citywide) is such a total disaster that it would have been an act of kindness for all concerned to have never ...
The Big Blue
Adventure. Drama. Sport. Directed By: Luc Besson. Written By: Robert Garland, Marilyn Goldin, Jacques Mayol, Marc Perrier, Luc Besson. The Big Blue. Metascore Generally Unfavorable Based on 5 Critic Reviews. 35. User Score Generally Favorable Based on 26 User Ratings.
Review/Film; Rival Divers Brave the Depths of the Sea
''The Big Blue'' begins in gray, with a prologue showing Jacques as a young boy learning to dive off the craggy coast of Greece; here and in other parts of the film, Mr. Besson uses spectacular ...
The Big Blue / Le grand bleu Blu-ray review
In all respects, The Big Blue is a confident piece of work whose running time, in its eventual 'director's cut' version, on the Blu Ray release, is a not inconsiderable 168 minutes. That's a little short of three hours but the characters are sufficiently intriguing, the mise en scene assured and the location-hopping worthy of a Bond picture.
The Big Blue
The Big Blue. Details: 1988, France, Cert 15, 119 mins. Direction: Luc Besson. With: Jean Marc Barr , Jean-Marc Barr and Rosanna Arquette. Telly addict casts his critical eye over New Worlds ...
Summer of '88: The Big Blue
The most enduring critique leveled against the cinema du look is its fixation on surface, an obsession that reaches its apotheosis in Luc Besson's The Big Blue.Soup to nuts, Besson's deep-diving melodrama stresses its own depth—emotional, artistic, oceanic—while ping-ponging between its two lead frenemies: the gooey-eyed dolphin-whisperer Jacques (Jean-Marc Barr) and the brash ...
The Big Blue
The Big Blue Reviews. 35 Metascore. 1989. 2 hr 48 mins. Drama, Action & Adventure. PG. Watchlist. Where to Watch. Writer-director Luc Besson's tale about a diver (Jean-Marc Barr) obsessed with the ...
The Big Blue (1988)
Synopsis. A visionary epic of obsession and beauty about Jacques Mayol, the handsome diver who is so at home in the water that he seems only half-human. Jacques' best friends are a family of playful porpoises and Enzo Molinari, his swaggering Italian diving rival. Jacques and Enzo grew up together in the Mediterranean, and remain lifelong ...
‎The Big Blue (1988) directed by Andrew Horn • Reviews, film + cast
The Big Blue: Lyrics by Jim Neu, music by Lenny Pickett, from the 1988 film, The Big Blue, by Andrew Horn. Deborah Auer performed this on Monday night, July 18, 2016 at Pangea, NYC. Performed with pianist Neal Kirkwood and bassist, Lindsey Horner. Video by Jacob Burckhardt.-THE BIG BLUE (Andrew Horn, 1988) dir. Andrew Horn, 1988 100 mins ...
The Big Blue (1988)
The rivalry between Enzo and Jacques, two childhood friends and now world-renowned free divers, becomes a beautiful and perilous journey into oneself and the unknown. Enzo and Jacques have known each other for a long time. Their friendship started in their childhood days in the Mediterranean. They were not real friends in these days, but there ...
45 Facts about the movie The Big Blue
The movie tells the story of two childhood friends, Jacques and Enzo, who share a love for the ocean and compete against each other in the world of free diving. As their friendship is tested and their deepest desires are brought to the surface, The Big Blue delves into themes of competition, adventure, love, and self-discovery. In this article ...
The Big Blue (1988)
The Big Blue Movie Review. The Big Blue is a 1988 adventure drama film directed by Luc Besson and starring Jean Marc-Barr, ... But The Big Blue is still a film about the allure of the underwater world and this is where I connected with it the most as I myself love to snorkel. I got the main character's obsession with water and the movie is ...
Blue's Big City Adventure
Blue's Big City Adventure is a 2022 live-action/animated musical comedy film.It is the second installment of the Blue's Clues film series and a standalone sequel to Blue's Big Musical Movie, based on the revival Nick Jr. Channel television series, Blue's Clues & You!.Directed by Matt Stawski, the film stars Traci Paige Johnson as the voice of Blue, alongside Josh Dela Cruz, Donovan Patton, and ...
Red vs. Blue's finale movie is still coming out, despite Rooster Teeth
Rooster Teeth may have been shuttered by Warner Bros. a few weeks ago, but that doesn't mean that Red vs. Blue is going away. The Halo -based machinima web series that started 21 years ago is ...
Back to Black (2024)
Back to Black: Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson. With Marisa Abela, Jack O'Connell, Eddie Marsan, Lesley Manville. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time.
Mami's yaki onigiri are grilled rice balls worth getting to know
The capstone.". For me, yaki onigiri bring back memories of (specifically) dark, snug izakayas under the train tracks in Tokyo, and (generally) being young and carefree and on a grand adventure ...

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Email not verified

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Movies / TV

The Big Blue

What to know

You might also like

What did you think of the movie? (optional)

How did you buy your ticket?

You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.

Cast & Crew

Critic Reviews for The Big Blue

Movie & TV guides

Le Grand bleu (1988) Directed by Luc Besson

Film Credits

The Big Blue

Recommendations

The Big Blue

Cast and crew

The Big Blue Review

MOVIE REVIEW : ‘The Big Blue’ Sinks Deep Into Pointlessness

More to Read

Rebel Wilson’s memoir suffers delays amid Sacha Baron Cohen harassment allegations

‘Zone’ composer Mica Levi is creating film music like you’ve never heard before

‘Beau Is Afraid’ explained: A disturbingly in-depth analysis of Ari Aster’s guilt trip to hell

More From the Los Angeles Times

The 50 best Hollywood books of all time

Review: ‘The First Omen’ plays to the faithful, but more nun fun is to be had elsewhere

Sacha Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher have split after 13 years of marriage, three kids

Fore! ‘Happy Gilmore 2’ is indeed in development, per Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore

Review/Film; Rival Divers Brave the Depths of the Sea

Today's paper

The Big Blue

User reviews

Film search

Sponsored feature

The Big Blue Reviews

The Big Blue

Jean Bouise

Your Browser is Not Supported

Letterboxd — Your life in film

Add to your films…

Add to lists

Where to watch

Director Director

Writers Writers

Releases by Date

Popular reviews

Select your preferred poster

Turn Your Curiosity Into Discovery

The Best AI Photo Editor of 2024 A Comprehensive Review

6 Facts You Didnt Know About Ecommerce Call Center Outsourcing

Key Takeaways:

“The Big Blue” is a 1988 French film.

The film stars Jean-Marc Barr and Jean Reno.

The Big Blue was a commercial success in France.

The movie was filmed in various locations.

The Big Blue features an enchanting soundtrack.

The story is inspired by the real-life rivalry of two divers.

The underwater scenes were meticulously choreographed.

The Big Blue won multiple awards at the César Awards.

The movie explores themes of friendship, love, and obsession.

The Big Blue has gained a cult following.

The diving scenes were shot with real free divers.

There are two versions of the film.

The movie draws on the mystical aspect of the ocean.

The Big Blue showcases the dangers of extreme diving.

The film tackles environmental issues.

The Big Blue was initially met with mixed reviews.

The movie was a box office success in several countries.

The Big Blue had a troubled production history.

The film explores the limits of the human body.

The Big Blue is renowned for its stunning underwater cinematography.

The Big Blue received an extended director’s cut.

The movie features breathtaking diving competitions.

The Big Blue explores the psychological aspects of diving.

The film’s production faced legal issues.

The Big Blue showcases the beauty of marine life.

The movie has a dedicated fan base.

The Big Blue features stunning underwater photography.