The Big Blue (1988)
- Original title
- Le Grand Bleu
- Directed by
- Luc Besson
- Genre
- drama film, adventure film, biographical film, romance film
- Country
- Italy, France, United States
- Runtime
- 2h 12m
- Rated
- PG-13
- Rating
- 7.4 of 10 from 1,583 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
Two champion free divers push the limits of their sport and their friendship. One diver is torn between his love for a woman and his deep connection to the sea.
meditativemelancholicdreamlikevisually lushslow-burnromantictensebittersweet
What happens
The Big Blue (released in some countries under the French title Le Grand Bleu) is a 1988 drama film co-written and directed by Luc Besson. Inspired by the Cinéma du look movement, the film 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 Maiorca (renamed "Enzo Molinari" and played by Jean Reno), and Mayol's fictionalized relationship with his girlfriend Johana Baker (played by Rosanna Arquette). The Big Blue became one of France's most commercially successful films (although an adaptation for US release was a commercial failure in that country). French president Jacques Chirac referred to the film in describing Mayol, after his suicide by hanging in 2001, as an enduring symbol for the "Big Blue" generation. The story was heavily adapted for cinema. In real life, Mayol lived from 1927 to 2001 and Maiorca retired from diving to politics in the 1980s. Both set no-limits-category deep diving records below 100 metres, and Mayol was indeed involved in scientific research into human aquatic potential, but neither reached 400 feet (120 metres) as portrayed in the film, and they were not direct competitors. Mayol himself was a screenwriter for the film, and Mayol's search for love, family, "wholeness" and the meaning of life and death, and the conflict and tension between his yearning for the deep and his relationship with his girlfriend are also major elements of the latter part of the film. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
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The Witches' Sabbath (1988)
Odore di spigo (1988)
Private Access (1988)
Love Dream (1988)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.