In which famed aqua-documentary man Steve Zissou (Bill Murry) goes to find the “jaguar-shark” that ate his friend; joining him is his possible son (neither of them is sure either way it seems) Ned Plimptom (Own Wilson), amongst many notable others.<\/p>\n
Steve Zissou: I was hopin’ to go out in a flash of blazes, but I’ll probably just end up goin’ home.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Whilst Anderson’s visual tics are always recognisable, this film, more so than his previous instalments, has a peculiar surreal edge. To my mind this peculiarity, as it were, emerges from the contrasting realities<\/em> of the world of Zissou and Plimpton and the world of their documentary. Visually, questionable veracity arises through the movie in two main (general) forms: the special-effects that appear to be part of Zissou’s documentary (e.g. the introduction to the vessel, and which breaks the fourth-wall of the ship) and those which appear to be part of the real-world (e.g. the fantastical presentation of the fish, which is presented to Zissou by Klaus’ son). The important, and qualifying, aspect of the latter, is that it is fantastical not because we the viewers know that it must be artificial, but because it is presented so that we cannot help but<\/em> feel that it is somehow out of place – Anderson makes no effort to present (or trick us to believe that) those strange aquatic creatures as real. To the obvious examples of the really-fake fish can be added the faux-nature of fight-scenes, which are presented as if<\/em> they were for a film.<\/p>\n
Many films try to merge our sense of reality and fiction by showing that their fiction has its own gradients of fiction. For example, in The Matrix<\/em>, the characters break out of a<\/em> fiction (viz. the matrix) into a<\/em> reality, or for example, in District 9<\/em> we are shown a (fictional) documentary (which by tautology is of a<\/em> reality). In both these cases, the movie points to something more real than itself to draw in the viewer. In The Life Aquatic<\/em> Anderson achieves a similar end by flipping this method around. Instead of showing how real<\/em> the characters life is (e.g. by showing that it is as real as a documentary), Anderson shows us how fake<\/em> their experiences are, namely, as fake as a documentary!<\/p>\n
\nLet us admit what all idealists admit: the hallucinatory nature of the world. Let us do what no idealist has done: seek unrealities which confirm that nature.<\/em><\/div>\nJorge L. Borges (Avatars of the Tortoise)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nAnderson employs a Borgesian paradox[I]<\/sup><\/a>, and proves the reality of his fiction by showing us that reality and fiction share a mutual ideality.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n[1]<\/sup><\/a> See Jorge Luis Borges’ \u201cA New Refutation of Time\u201d where he asserts that “the continuity of time is an illusion, that time exists without succession and each moment contains all eternity, which negates the very notion of \u201cnew.\u201d” For further details see the “A New Refutation of Time: Borges on the Most Paradoxical Dimension of Existence<\/a>“<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In which famed aqua-documentary man Steve Zissou (Bill Murry) goes to find the “jaguar-shark” that ate his friend; joining him is his possible son (neither of them is sure either way it seems) Ned Plimptom (Own Wilson), amongst many notable others. Steve Zissou: I was hopin’ to go out in a flash of blazes, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,90,197,85,166],"tags":[248,88,86],"metadata":[171],"class_list":["post-1576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-blog-posts","category-film-review","category-no-trip-to-cleveland","category-wes-anderson","tag-borges","tag-the-life-aquatic","tag-wes-anderson","metadata-editors-footnotes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":460,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/01\/12\/i-saved-latin-what-did-you-ever-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":1576,"position":0},"title":"I saved Latin. What did you ever do?","author":"Pala","date":"January 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Rushmore (1988) was the second full-length film directed by Wes Anderson, and like his first film Bottle Rocket, it was co-written with Owen Wilson. The story revolves around 15-year-old Max Fischer (played by Jason Schwartzman) who attends the socially selective school Rushmore on an academic scholarship, and who at the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1577,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2009\/12\/26\/theyll-never-catch-me-because-im-fucking-innocent-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1576,"position":1},"title":"They’ll never catch me… because I’m fucking innocent","author":"Pala","date":"December 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Bottle Rocket (1996) was Wes Anderson's first feature film, apparently co-written with Owen Wilson who also acts here, alongside his brother Luke Wilson. In brief the film plot begins with Anthony (L. Wilson) leaving (but appearing to escape for the sake of his friend) from a mental hospital, joining up\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":461,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2009\/02\/18\/hell-of-a-grave-wish-it-were-mine\/","url_meta":{"origin":1576,"position":2},"title":"Hell of a grave, wish it were mine.","author":"Pala","date":"February 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: In February 2009, Shai starts his rich blogging career with a\u00a0blog\u00a0dedicated to reviewing\u00a0Wes Anderson films. Of the five posts written between February 2009 and April 2012 and dedicated to this topic, four are written on the blog and one is found in Shai\u2019s Google Drive, perhaps written there\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1210,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2012\/04\/24\/twilight-as-directed-by-wes-anderson\/","url_meta":{"origin":1576,"position":3},"title":"Twilight as Directed by Wes Anderson","author":"Pala","date":"April 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: One of Shai\u2019s unique talents was writing stories in the style of famous authors. In the story below, retrieved from his Google Drive, he convincingly imitates a vampire genre, Twilight-like movie script, as if it were directed by Wes Anderson. Scene 1: A fixed camera shows the following:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":68,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/01\/10\/strike-zone-tng\/","url_meta":{"origin":1576,"position":4},"title":"Strike Zone (TNG)","author":"pastfarpoint","date":"January 10, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Strike Zone by Peter David the fifth novel in the TNG series. The plot involves the Kreel (who apparently are the most hated enemy of the Klingon due to their [thickly laid on] dishonourable nature) discovering an ancient stash of weapons, attacking the Klingon, etc., the Enterprise is called in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Detail from \"Strike Zone\" cover","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/strike_zone_cropped.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":192,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/05\/02\/a-rock-and-a-hard-place-tng\/","url_meta":{"origin":1576,"position":5},"title":"A Rock and a Hard Place (TNG)","author":"pastfarpoint","date":"May 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the tenth numbered TNG novels, and also Peter David's second. Riker's off to inspect some terraforming project, permitting for the plot to quickly bifurcate: on the colony Paradise we follow Riker as he catches up with some old friends from his Alaska days, while on the Enterprise various\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Detail from \"A Rock and Hard Place\" cover","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/a_rock_and_a_hard_place_cover_cropped.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/padotI-pq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1576"},{"taxonomy":"metadata","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/metadata?post=1576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}