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Before David Attenborough and Jacques Cousteau - there was Jean Painleve. Poetic pioneer of science films, Painleve explored a twilight realm of vampire bats, seahorses, octopi, and liquid crystals. In collaboration with his life-partner, Genevieve Hamon, Painleve made more than 200 science and nature films and was an early champion of the genre. This selection from 50 years of passionate scientific enquiry includes his most famous films - 'The Sea Horse', 'The Vampire', 'The Love Life of the Octopus' and 'Sea Urchins'.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By Martin Smith
VINE™ VOICE
This is as far from a David Attenborough nature doc as it's possible to get. Msr Painleve is French, so these films are infused with a visual and verbal poetry and a wonderful sense of design (you the impression that you are looking into an aquarium most of the time rather than looking into the sea but this matters little).
He hung around with surrealists like Andre Breton and Luis Bunuel, so these films have more than a slight whiff of the surreal about them. The scenes showing an octupus crawling menacingly along a beach are one of the most surreal things I've seen, even though it's perfectly real!
Most of the films are underwater nature studies, but there is also a bizarre early claymation of the Bluebeard story and a couple of other curious.
Music fans should take note of this release. Pierre Henry scores one film - Duke Ellington another, and the early electronica really fits strange imagery on show. The bonus disk has the films stripped of commentary with a new soundtrack by Yo La Tengo, minimalist and instrumental, but still rather good.
He hung around with surrealists like Andre Breton and Luis Bunuel, so these films have more than a slight whiff of the surreal about them. The scenes showing an octupus crawling menacingly along a beach are one of the most surreal things I've seen, even though it's perfectly real!
Most of the films are underwater nature studies, but there is also a bizarre early claymation of the Bluebeard story and a couple of other curious.
Music fans should take note of this release. Pierre Henry scores one film - Duke Ellington another, and the early electronica really fits strange imagery on show. The bonus disk has the films stripped of commentary with a new soundtrack by Yo La Tengo, minimalist and instrumental, but still rather good.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
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i ended my last review with the words 'fascinating and strange' and that seems as good a place as any to start this one. This dvd features a selection of films by Jean Painleve, some from as early as 1927 and through to the late 70s. My favourite film is the one about seahorses. This film, which shows a male seahorse giving birth, is only 17 minutes long and it is JUST EXTRAORDINARY: beautiful, bizarre and 'balletic'. Don't miss the 'love life of the octopus' either.
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