Mission Blue (Fisher Stevens, Robert Nixon, 2014): USA

Reviewed by Angela Yago. Viewed at the Arlington Theatre, Santa Barbara.

It was the opening night of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and Mission Blue was going to start the film festival. Mission Blue is a documentary directed by Robert Nixon and Fisher Stevens, and is about oceanographer Sylvia Earle and her passion for diving and every little thing about the ocean. Her passion for the ocean has been there for her whole life, every since she was a child. In this documentary Sylvia is traveling around the world to find out how to save the animals in the ocean. To find that out, she dives into the ocean to see the problems with her own eyes. I think it was really cool to see the ocean from her perspective and in a way that I have never seen. It was great to see how beautiful the ocean was for many years ago, however also sad to see what’s happened to it now and how the ocean and the animals are being treated.

There were some shots that stood out and that I still have on my mind. When they show the actions of the fishermen who chop off the fins of the sharks and then throw the sharks back into the ocean, knowing that they won’t survive. All that for a cup of soup with the sharks in it. Also the scene when Sylvia is at a fish market and sees the horrible sight of all the tuna that’s just laying there, ready to be cut and sold. These scenes are in the documentary to show the audience what’s going on and what that industry doesn’t want us to know. Director Robert Nixon took these shots into the documentary to make us realize why the tuna is wiping out. Those behind the scene shots are powerful and needs to be shown to the public.

In the end of Mission Blue, Sylvia travels all the way to Australia with Robert to dive and see what’s down in the ocean. It was a mess, a disaster. The coral reef was completely dead and not a single fish was seen. It was a pretty scary sight, from seeing the ocean and all the beautiful things down under to a dead and dark ocean. You could see the devastation and sadness in Sylvia’s eyes, she has been trying to save the ocean and all its beautiful creatures, and now everything is fading away. Her strength and dedication is inspirational, she really wants to show the audience that you should do what you love, fight for it and believe in it.

This documentary had many amazing scenes, it was unbelievably beautiful to see what’s under the surface of the ocean, or what it was and looked like back in the days at least. I loved to see how passionate Sylvia Earle has been her whole life and how engaged she is on the topic. The scenes under water were incredible, it was really cool to see all those huge fishes and sharks up close, and the sight of all the beautiful coral reef.
They included all the important facts and talked about the background of this topic, how this problem is a struggle and what we can do to make it better. Talking about the struggles raised hope for the future.

It was a good documentary to show people what has happened to the ocean and the animals, from being beautiful to almost a disaster. It makes you think more about our planet, what we do and how it affects everything around us. The shots and scenes they chose to include in it were really cool to see, so for you documentary lovers – go see this.