Ocean with David Attenborough
In Ocean with David Attenborough, Britain’s most beloved naturalist returns not to muse but to rally. Now in his 99th year, Attenborough’s tone is purposeful, his language sharpened into something closer to indictment than gentle warning. This is not the grandfatherly storyteller of Blue Planet – here, Attenborough speaks with the steady force of a man who has witnessed too much and waited too long for the world to act.
Much of the film’s impact lies in its warlike imagery and soundtrack, especially when exposing the ravages of industrial fishing. In one haunting sequence, scallop dredgers scrape the seafloor with jagged metal teeth, churning sand and sediment into clouds, leaving “trails of destruction” behind that can be seen from outer space.
Ocean with David Attenborough shuns the now-familiar extremes of nature filmmaking – no sweeping drone footage or disorienting microscopic close-ups. Instead, the camera often lingers at sea level, at the threshold between surface and depth, maintaining a steady, unflinching gaze, as though events are unfolding directly before us. It is not a passive lens drifting and hovering for the best shots, but a witness embedded in the moment. The perspective is intimate and unforgiving – less an invitation to observe, more a confrontation. It’s uncomfortably close, as if viewers, too, are caught in the violence.
Each word Attenborough chooses is deliberate, cutting through the neutrality that has too often softened environmental reporting. Fishing boats do not “fish” here – they “hunt”. Coastal nations are not using their waters – they are “exploiting” them. This choice of words matters. He deliberately avoids the term “ecosystem” when discussing coral reefs, choosing instead to describe the reefs and their inhabitants as “communities” – a purposeful shift that reimagines them as dynamic, interconnected entities, rather than the abstract constructs they are often presented as.
But the ocean is far from a helpless victim, and Attenborough makes it abundantly clear that the tide can still turn. He marvels at marine life’s resilience and extraordinary capacity for recovery when given the chance, highlighting the thriving No Take Zones in the Channel Islands and the revitalised reefs of Kiribati as proof. By the end of the film’s 84-minute run, his call to action is clear: recovery is possible, but only where conservation is genuine and intentional.
Christina Yang
Ocean with David Attenborough is released nationwide on 8th May 2025.
Watch the trailer for Ocean with David Attenborough here:
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