“And then the final film that I chose is Jean Painlevé. This is such a great film, and it’s probably the one I’ve seen more than any one of these others. He did this early aquatic photography where he did these really beautiful, pastoral, kind of art nouveau portraits of underwater sea life, and they’re so spectral and so lush and so unfurling. He also has a really good sense of humor. It’s all in French, but it’s quite funny. I’m obsessed with Jean Painlevé’s films of the ocean, especially now that the Great Barrier Reef and all coral life, it’s been declared that it’s going to be extinct by 2030, or functionally extinct, which means a 90% mortality or greater. These films are time capsules of a time where we presumed that nature would always prevail.”
