Wes Anderson is the second best director with his last name  
and I like him a lot. Lot of people will shy away from  
saying he's one of the best American directors still dropping
hits because it's sacrilige or whatever but I won't and he is.
Dude's been putting out indie classics since the year Pac passed
and deserves the credit without an "I mean, f-f-for our time" disclaimer.
That's why it doesn't make sense   to me that in 2004 his most ambitous
feature yet was critically panned for being a Wes Anderson movie.
"The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" does a million things right -
but   - one thing it does right-er than the rest of Wes' films is - it consistently  
challenges the audience's feelings towards its characters. Our protagonist, the oceanographer filmmaker that the film is named after, is someone who is on-paper a sincerely unlikable person with few - if any - redeeming qualities left to him until his redemption near the end of the film. Wes plays on this throughout The Life Aquatic;  tricking the audience into  siding  with Zissou through most of his interactions  
due to...how these interactions are framed. We're seldomn shown an exchange
between characters that isn't expressly presented to us from Zissou's - perspective.
Right, okay, he's - defensive and...argumentative towards Eleanor, Oseary,
Allistar, Jane, and basically everyone else - but the way he approaches
these interactions, and the way these characters approach him, feed into
this sort of...hyper self-centered paranoia that he expresses during his first interview with Jane. Everyone...must be taking something out on him.  
This...misimpression of the characters surrounding Steve begins much earlier in the film, though - uh - specifically about 6 minutes in - with this interaction - right here.
After Steve's documentary "The Jaguar Shark Pt. 1"   - in which his best friend
Esteban is eaten in front of him by a shark that no-one including Steve is quite sure exists - premiers to a...confused and altogether disinterested audience; we see - or
rather hear - him be requested to take a picture with Captain Allistar Hennesy  
- another oceanographer attending the premiere - to which Steve begrudgingly...agrees. Insisting rather unhappily that it needs to happen quickly.  
This - brief interaction between Hennesy and Zissou, based solely on how Zissou reacts to it, instantly creates the illusion that Hennesy isn't being genuine in his concern or interest with Zissou's coming adventure - or...Zissou's well being in general.  
A feeling of artificiality that is heightened exponentially by the fact that our
introduction to this character relationship is during a photo-op - and ... immediately followed by Steve's tired decleration that Hennesy is his nemesis.  
Every interaction throughout the first half of the film and - a handful of them
following it - is plainly structured with the intent of making us feel like Zissou...is in some way a victim. His arrogance and self-interest misdirect  us into thinking that despite the information we're given, Steve deserves all or at least a great deal of our sympathy...and pity.  
       I mean - after all; the guy's lost...his spark.
Uh - we'll come back to this and how it pays off in a minute -
but right now I badly want to talk to you about sparks.
(exhale, whew)
Here it goes.
On top of what is easily in my top 10 film soundtracks of all time, "The Life Aquatic" also features my absolute favorite use of symbolism in a Wes Anderson film. Within the trio of Wes' films that The Life Aquatic finds its home in - what I like to refer to as the "In Search of a Father Figure" trilogy - animals and antiquity are usually the go-to when it comes to symbolic gestures or events. In..."Rushmore" we have dead languages, in "The Royal Tenenbaums" we have cigarettes and pets,  
but - in "The Life Aquatic" - we have electricity.
After Zissou exits his premiere and shares in an uncomfortable - to say the least - exchange trying to introduce a former mistress to his wife, we...cut to a television -playing a past interview of Zissou...and Estaban. Cutting back from the interview, Zissou is now alone in the frame - in a tighter shot, with the focus shallowed.  
With - an obligatory "Wes Anderson 90 degree cut" - it's revealed to us that  
the television is actually sat atop a pedastal. And as Zissou reaches out to touch  
his lost companion, it creates a spark at his finger tip.  
Zissou's...lost Estaban. A man who, less than 2 minutes into
the film, he tells us is his best friend. Much like - emotional baggage
takes on a literal sense in "The Darjeeling Limited", so - too - does
the concept of "losing your spark" in "The Life Aquatic".  
The entirety of "The Life Aquatic" is built around  
Zissou's - arrogance and self-interest - being a...
hastily put together...paper mache mask to cover his
trauma and loss of self - that quickly fades, leaving us
with a man who is as inconsiderate and contradictory as he is
gracious and charismatic. Not only has he lost his spark, but Zissou  
and - more importantly those around him - place his past and who  
he used to be on a pedastal. And...this leaves him feeling more isolated
from his surroundings than any other shot in the film. This use of electricity  
to symbolize the loss of Zissou's former self carries on throughout
"The Life Aquatic", serving as the film's most prominent motif -
either...punctuating or prefixing every pivotal beat in the story -  
mostly in the form of power outages aboard Zissou's ship, The Belafonte.
Much in the same way that Steve deflects his failures and insecurities  
onto those around him - despite them never actually posing a threat  
or otherwise being a genuinely malicious presence in the film - every time
the power goes out on the ship...someone else fixes it on his behalf. Most  
of the time without him even acknowledging it went out to begin with.  
That is - until the second to last sequence of the film, when Steve is notified  
that they've finally  located the Jaguar Shark - that...he's spent the last hour  
and 45 minutes of run-time in pursuit of. Wolodarsky interrupts Zissou and Jane  
sharing a vulnerable moment of reconciliation to let Steve know that the shark has
been located on the far side of the reef. But - as he rushes out of the cabin by himself -  
the power goes out. The entire remaining cast of the film - complaining in unison that they had thought The Belafonte's electrical problems had been fixed.
Once again - a beat in the story made literal.
After everything Steve has been through and his reconciliation with Elanor, Alli, Ned, Jane, and his crew - it seemed like he was finally...okay. Yet, when the moment arises to confront his pain, he isolates himself - without thinking twice.  
But then - defying the entire cabin's expectations, as well as ours -  
Steve turns around. And he fixes it. With the team left stunned,
he...invites the cabin to confront his trauma...with him. With the surge of  
electricity, and Steve's decision to face the loss of it directly, he finally  
reclaims his former stature as the warm, charismatic leader
we've been shown glimpses of...throughout the film.  
This sort of...sudden vault in emotional development for Zissou is seen
only one other time in the film, when the Belafonte is taken hostage by pirates,
  and - is also prefixed with an electrical surge. This time, however; the cue is
aural. Not visual. As...Steve listens to his crewmates pray for their lives and  
the peril that he's put them in becomes fully tangible to him, a flashback to
Estaban's death is accompanied by the sharp sound of an electrical current and -  
when we cut back to Steve on the ship - a spark has been reignited not only
within him - but within his world. The overwhelming blues and greys  
once present in the frame now replaced by the lively oranges and yellows
we'd grown used to up to this point in the film. And Steve is, albeit temporarily, surrounded - by - sparks. Which...conveniently brings me back to where I started.  
Steve Zissou - is the hardest to defend protagonist - in a Wes Anderson film.
Not...as a character - but - as a human being.  
Notice - how he...completely blames Ned for this attack?
"Sure," - you might say - "Steve charted his devoted crew as well as some
unpaid interns and a bond stooge through unprotected waters vulnerable to piracy  
to save money. But  Ned should have been on watch.  Ned could have stopped this."  
Right? Uh - wrong, actually.
Steve is so adamant on self-inserting and imposing his insecurities
and fear of fading out onto his illegitimate possibly-son he ignored for
his entire life - that he CHANGES THE 30 YEAR OLD MAN'S NAME
AND THEN DOESN'T TELL ANYBODY HE DID IT.
So - what at first seems like a simple comedy noise where Klaus makes
fun of the name Steve has given Ned - building on the tension between these
two characters that has been present since Ned's introduction to the team -
turns out to actually just be a glaring flaw in Steve's leadership. Changing Ned's  
name on the watch-list without telling his first-mate or the rest of his crew is  
incredibly reckless by itself, but he does so by stamping the name he came up with for Ned over his own. Once again - Steve absolves himself from...any responsibility.  The only person who knows Ned should be on watch is Steve, but he resigns himself to wallowing in defeat after glimpsing Ned and Jane kissing through one of his research dolphin's cameras. From Steve's perspective, he's the one who's been wronged.
Every tension, every...confrontation within "The Life Aquatic" - is not only caused
by Steve - but it is then shrugged off and deflected onto those who care about him.
And more often than not...this ends up being the person the confrontation is with.  
Because...the only one who made it a confrontation is him.  
And - the writing, editing, framing, and scoring of this film all compliment  
this multi-tiered defense mechanism exceptionally well.  
I mean - Steve has his points - right?  
Why can't Elanor break the news to him that his cat died a little nicer?  
Except - she...did. As a matter of fact the only part of this interaction
featuring anything other than genuine sympathy is Steve criticizing her
attempt to inform and comfort him without even saying hi to her.
Elanor turning her back to him before he finishes his sentence
reads, to Steve and the audience, like a confirmation of what he's  
projecting. "Elanor doesn't really care. Why is she so rude about it?  
What - she can't try to sound more empathetic?"
Wes sets these traps...all over this film. Allistar can't remember the name
of Steve's film because he was at the same event premiering his own film
but - he still makes a genuine effort in asking how Steve has been
and even reaffirms him after Steve gives an eye-roll prefixed, discourteous answer.
Later in the film it's made clear that not only are Hennesy and Zissou long-time
colleagues, but they mentored under the same oceanographer - Lord Mandrake.
And going off of the quote Jane reads to Ned in their second interview,  
Hennesy  knows Zissou was the more talented and well liked of the two.
Allistar may have more money - and they may compete on some level over
Elanor - but Allistar only ever tries to help Steve throughout The Life Aquatic  
and is even surprised by Steve doing him some kindness in return later  
in the film when he accidentally rescues him. Steve - still holding onto
his spite - going so far as to not offer him first aid for a bullet wound
in his chest while he immediately orders firstaid be given to Pele.
From accusing his producer of sabotaging their own funding,
to taking gratuitis sums of money from a boy he neglected for 30
years, to pointing a glock at a pregnant woman who idolizes him,
to throwing even the smallest words of comfort back in his wife's
face as if he's somehow been made a victim of her non-existent callousness,
Wes manipulates and...skews these interactions as they take place,
coaxing us into sticking by Steve's side - like Remora sticking to the side
of an old Shark - through nearly the entire film. The only points where it  
truly stands out that Steve is the closest thing to an antagonist in this film -  
being the points where Wes wants it to stand out to us. Because - although all  
of this social and emotional ineptitude makes Zissou Wes Anderon's hardest  
to defend protagonist - it...also makes him his most appreciable.
He is endlessly charismatic, his zeal for filmmaking and oceanography unmatched and ever-present - even in the face of peril when everyone around him is telling him to give up. He acts selfishly and callously - at times with wild abandon and with no concern for
those around him. His behavior throughout most of the film is objectionable at best - but...Bill Murray's performance, as well as the almost youthful playfulness that's present in every line that Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach wrote for Zissou keeps us rooting  
for him from the beginning to the end of the film. The Life Aquatic can - at times - be a challenging story to watch  not because of its surface level insincerity or its abundance of quirks - but because Steve Zissou is a challenging person to watch.   Because he feels more like a person than...any other character in any other Wes Anderson film.  
Speaking of people and...The Life Aquatic's...contrast between reality and artificiality -
I think it's about time we talk influence. Specifically, it's about time we talk
"The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou"'s inarguably greatest influence;
Jacques Cousteau.
Jacques Cousteau was an explorerer, oceanographer, inventor, author, and filmmaker
that sprang to the forefront of nature documentary filmmaking and left the world in awe with the release of his 1956 Palme d'or winning documentary - "The Silent World".  
Still considered one of the greatest nature documentaries ever made and - only
one of two documentary films to have  won the Palme d'or - it    laid the groundwork for how to make a truly captivating nature documentary film. And...everything in The Life Aquatic is either placed as a mirror to The Silent World,  or - composed with the express purpose of controverting it. From the opening shot of Steve's film - right down to the team Zissou uniforms - being pulled almost straight from Cousteaou, to the scoring and the characters'  treatment of marine  within  The Life Aquatic  life directly contrasting - Cousteaou's film.  
In...the same way that Zissou sways back and forth between
the fantasy and reality of who he is; so - too - does the film itself.  
Anderson weaves very deliberate and  overt references to   "The Silent World" throughout "The Life Aquatic".
Jaques, as well as his crew aboard the Calypso, killing sharks out of irrational, misplaced anger - deflecting the remorse they felt for a baby whale's death at the hand
of their own ship by attacking their perceived "enemy", is - mirrored by Zissou's treatment of every supporting character in The Life Aquatic as a result of the
death of his friend. Contrary to what his paranoia and self-loathing would have him believe, everyone surrounding him is a benevolent pressence.
The...only assuredly antagonistic figure in "The Life Aquatic"...being Zissou himself.
And - this guy? I guess? (tts "Steve I have to tell you I am really glad your friend is dead you idiot bitch" + Fist of North Star)
Anyways, the point is - "The Life Aquatic" takes from the most arresting  
moments of Cousteaou's masterpiece and...projects them through a lens of childlike idealism. Acting as a series of mirrors that either brighten or altogether upend nearly every beat within "The Silent World".
One of Cousteou's crew members grab their rifle in order to put down a suffering whale that had been fatally wounded by the Calypso's propeller. Hennesy asks one of  his crew members to load his rifle in order to  kill the thief at his facility, not realizing it's Zissou. The suffering whale - struck by a propeller he could've avoided. His own negligence.
The Calypso is constantly swaying and, at times, crashing against uproarious waves
while - The Belafonte - is never shown to be unsteady or swaying with the exception of one hallway shot, similar to Carroll Ballard's "The Black Stallion".
Team Zissou innocently tests dynamite in the sand and uses it only  
once in the film to save their friends - while - Cousteau used it on reefs.
Killing hundreds of fish to catalogue their populations.
The rising action of The Life Aquatic - Steve's ambition for the first chapter of the film - is to kill his perceived enemy as a kneejerk reaction to the guilt and sorrow that washed over him. Much in the same way Cousteau and his crew rationlized killing innocent sharks for responding to an animal Cousteau and his crew themselves inadvertantly killed. But - through Wes' rose tinted lens, this part of Cousteau is rejected and...inverted. Zissou's  vendetta immediately curtailed and rescinded upon finally confronting his trauma; surrounded by those who love him, as he regains  his love for marine life - and...accepts his loss.
The scoring of The Silent World is triumphant, full of thunderous and bright string compositions - while - the scoring of The Life Aquatic is mostly a mixture of subdued midi compositions and rock ballads, almost all of which are stripped down Bowie songs that have been translated into Portuguese.  
And...that's what "The Life Aquatic" is. Idealization pitted in its endless struggle
against reality, and the whiplash that it causes.
"The Life Aquatic" takes all of the beats - and all of the setpieces - that made Cousteau's "The Silent World" such an enchanting documentary.
And...refashions them, albeit slightly, into Wes Anderson's vision  -  of - Cousteau.
Uh - speaking of music - I've been dying for the last - like - 2,894 words
to talk about this movie's soundtrack.
I mean *snort laugh* it's so GOOD.  
Okay, so, the score of the film was composed partially - by - Mark Mothersbaugh,
keyboardist and lead-singer of DEVO turned film score composer - and partially by Sven Libaek. Except HIS portion of the score was originally written for the Australian nature documentary series "Inner Space". And - although they vary in instrumentation
and overall tone, the compositions still coalesce exceptionally well to accentuate the feeling of artificiality that Wes was aiming for.   The score - composed and selected to indicate moments of unnaturalness or disingenuousness - plays during moments taking place within Steve Zissou's documentary - The Jaguar Shark Part 2. Although...the... interactions that take place over these compositions aren't explicitly insincere, it detracts from the emotional weight that they would otherwise carry. And Ned points this out, here, during their argument - jabbing that he's just another character in Steve's film.
And...it's true. At least, to Ned. Because almost every interaction they've shared up  
to this point has been underscored by the symplistic, synthetic compositions
that he grew up listening to. He doesn't see or hear Life On Mars swell into
the foreground after Steve meets him - or - Search and Destroy by Iggy and the Stooges blaring so loudly that the only sound to break through is a single shot to the neck of a pirate Steve swore he would kill for hurting him. How could he? Not only are these pieces of music not playing in their world in the way Seu Jorge's David Bowie renditions or Joan Baez and Ennio Morricon's "Here's To You" are - but Ned isn't
even present for them. In the first instance due to being out of frame, and the second
instance due to being out of - uh - consciousness. So  - what this means is - from Ned's perspective - their interactions accompanied by the score - feel more artificial than they do to us. Their few moments of naturally, comfortably talking to eachother underscored either by Seu Jorge's muffled renditions of David Bowie, or...no music at all.  
Every genuine moment of the film where a character isn't hiding
their feelings behind a mask is accompanied by this, or this, or this, or this.
Ned's theme - accompanying us as Steve and the rest of Team Zissou descend
to confront the Jaguar Shark, fading into the ambience of the ocean floor, and finally being replaced by Starálfur (pronounced Staur-al-ver) by Sigur Ros - triumphantly climbing into the foreground as every character we've grown to know for the last hour and 47 minutes jaw drops while Steve finally lets his pain go - is - the most visceral and persuasive  musical transition in Wes Anderson's filmography. Everything that made Steve Zissou such a hard person to like or...even try to defend is washed away in an instant. And...what is left - is what we've spent the entire film seeing echoes of in the expressions and behavior of not only him, but of those around him.
A   charismatic, warm man who...still wishes he could breathe underwater - stripped down...to his core - and left...completely defenseless, but whole.
It is - precisely this constrast between artificiality and sincerity, this...rapid cycling
between fantasy and reality, that functions as The Life Aquatic's thematic bassline.
Without such distinct and precipitous changes in tone, The Life Aquatic...would sink.
But - just as Wes fools us into thinking that everything is hopeless...or...  
the interactions become too cold or contrived...Iggy and the Stooges soars in.
And...it's as if (play Lord Mandrake quote)
Every piece of The Life Aquatic from...Henry Selick's masterful stopmotion animation
of the marine life being super-imposed into shots, to Wes casting his actual sound man as Team Zissou's sound man, to David Bowie's chorus on Life On Mars being an accutely self aware nod from Wes that he's been meditating on the same themes for his past three films - having written this ten times or more and acknowledging that, in this iteration, people might feel that it's a saddening bore, to Robert Yeoman's  whimsically precise cinematography, to Milena Canonero's romantic costume design, to the capricious contrast of technology present in the sets - all come together and weave a tapestry that not only savors, but eulogizes the collision between reality and fantasy.
One that both condemns and exalts, criticizes and praises, and mourns and celebrates the idealized versions of ourselves that live in our head. And - the idealized versions of others that live in there as well. Especially...fathers. Or the surrogates for them
that we seek. Whether it's...Jacques Cousteau or...Orson Welles.
But, you know how the saying goes. You should never meet your idols.
Except...maybe we should. Maybe...instead of idols, to us, they  
could be people. With flaws and traumas all their own, completely  
separate from the image we had of them when we were 11 and a half.
Maybe it'd be better that way.
Hmm.
Anyways Wes, I loved it.
Critics were buggin.  
I'm throwin it an easy 8 out of 10.