The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

An indescribably “weird" movie. What ever I might write about either isn’t true or doesn’t reflect the facts. I might use words like melancholic, nostalgic, sad etc., but the end result isn’t like that at all. It’s a picture that you’ll find boring, unless you happen to be in the right mood for it, in which case you’ll be greatly entertained. I don’t dare to say whether it’s a comedy, a parody, a homage to Cousteau or a serious drama. But it certainly has a whole lotta love in it and a bit of everything else. It even has some of Karel Zeman’s movies in it too. I suppose that this is sort of how, as a child, Wes Anderson imagined the work of an oceanographer and here he is simply sharing his vision with us. (21/03/2005)

My first Wes Anderson and I'll start right off by saying I really didn't expect it to be this good. The way Anderson manages to tastefully dose humor (and really good humor at that) and dramatic moments is very likeable. I guess the feeling that sticks in my mind the most is during the closing credits, when I asked myself what I was watching – was it a drama, a comedy, an adventure, or a film about basically mundane things (problems) set in a not entirely conventional environment. Genre-wise it is difficult to identify (not that it really matters), but it is very well written, acted, original, and ultimately very moving. (14/04/2012)

A weird film that perhaps it’s impossible to assign a key genre subtext to. In terms of comedy, it works quite well and the uncharacteristically wacky humour manages to amuse in places. On the adventure side, however, it's not that good, the story struggles to gain speed and I found the main storyline, with all due respect to the original premise, rather weak and uninteresting. But what's really brilliant about the film are the performances, in particular, the trio Murray, Anjelica Huston and Willem Dafoe are perfect. Overall, slightly above average, and next time I wish Wes Anderson would push the envelope a bit more in terms of humour and emotion. (26/07/2011)

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was a big surprise. I expected a weird and untraditional film, but in a completely different way: a crazy comedy, but it turned out to be a pretty serious and sad piece, and also very pleasantly incorrect. I recommend not looking for any information, nor reading anything about it before watching it (as I did this time); it’s better to watch it unprepared :-) (23/01/2011)

One must admire Anderson, because he managed to keep this strange patchwork of pseudo-documentary, infantile D adventure and intimate drama together with the ease of a master. This is greatly aided by the music, especially the postmodern remakes of David Bowie into Portuguese and intimate songwriting, which have a special rhythmic impact on the overall somewhat unbalanced tempo of the film thanks to the regular cuts to musician Seu Jorge. An indispensable specificity of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is the stylized camera, especially the composition of images, which often resembles a group photo from a traveler's diary (or scenes from children's hero games – as you can see, they are close to each other). However, the main driving aspect of the film is undoubtedly the acting performances (I have to mention the phenomenal Willem Dafoe and especially Bill Murray, who is at the imaginary peak of his powers!), thanks to which one overcomes the vertigo of confusion in the opening parts of the film and, with a little luck, finds the path to Steve Zissou's bizarre aquarium... The risk of him running out of oxygen in the depths is still present, but despite this fact, this film is worth betting on. (19/03/2005)