Painlevé and his co-director,Geneviève Hamon, turn to the tidal waters off Cape Finistere to gather examples of three of the local varieties of jellyfish and use the usual combination of microphotography and high-speed camerawork to show us how they live and reproduce.
This is drier in tone than most of their movies, more an expository lecture on their subject with almost none of the usual black humor -- although the creepy organ music suits a subject that was a source of anxiety to me as a child bathing in the ocean, fearful that toxic jellyfish would come up and sting me to death. Of greatest interest is the openness of their methodology, showing a woman -- presumably Geneviève Hamon gathering the specimens, placing them in glass tanks, and discussing the use of ttime-lapse cameras and magnification.
This is drier in tone than most of their movies, more an expository lecture on their subject with almost none of the usual black humor -- although the creepy organ music suits a subject that was a source of anxiety to me as a child bathing in the ocean, fearful that toxic jellyfish would come up and sting me to death. Of greatest interest is the openness of their methodology, showing a woman -- presumably Geneviève Hamon gathering the specimens, placing them in glass tanks, and discussing the use of ttime-lapse cameras and magnification.
