Here’s a fun fact: before Michael Moore won the Palme d’Or for “Fahrenheit 9/11,” the only other director to win the prize for a documentary was famed explorer and conservationist Jacques Cousteau for “The Silent World” in 1956. As for the man himself, he’s never been the subject of a big screen biopic (though Wes Anderson riffed on him in “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou“) but that’s about to change with “The Odyssey.”
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Directed by Jérôme Salle (perhaps most famous for “Anthony Zimmer” which was remade into “The Tourist” starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie), and starring Lambert Wilson, Pierre Niney, and Audrey Tautou, the film still tell the story of Cousteau through the rocky relationship with his son, exacerbated by the brightly shining light of celebrity. Here’s the official synopsis:
Summer, 1946. The Cousteau family – Jacques, his wife Simone and their two children Philippe and Jean-Michel – live in their beautiful house by the Mediterranean sea. By day they dive, by night they watch the stars. It’s paradise on earth. But Jacques is never content. He lives and breathes adventure and believes absolutely in the virtues of progress. With his invention, the aqualung, his recently acquired vessel the Calypso, and a crew of free-spirited adventurers he is ready to cross the world’s oceans. Ten years later, back from the boarding school to which he was sent with Jean-Michel, Philippe finds his father greatly altered – an international celebrity with megalomaniac dreams of grafting gills to humans and creating underwater cities. Jacques cannot see it yet, but Philippe already understands that progress and pollution have begun to lay waste to the submarine world. Despite their mutual love and admiration, violent conflict between these two passionate men is inevitable. But on their greatest adventure together aboard the Calypso, in Antarctica, they will find each other – before tragedy strikes.
With a score by Alexandre Desplat, and featuring what looks like some lovely cinematography by Matias Boucard, “The Odyssey” will open in France on October 12th. No U.S. distributor yet, but the picture is currently being shopped at Cannes. Watch the trailer above (the song is “It’s Ok” by Tom Rosenthal).
