DOCUMENTARY; 1hr 38min
DIRECTED BY: Rob Stewart
School’s out: hammerheads
Two-thirds of the world’s surface is water and some 80 per cent of life is floating or growing in it. For 400 million years, sharks have been a scary part of that exotic marine population. But do “the lions and tigers of the seas” deserve their dire rep? No no no, says documentary maker Rob Stewart. Sharks are “beautiful” and unfairly maligned — and he has experts and stats to back him up.
Stewart’s crusade, and the purpose of his revelatory film, is to demystify the boogie-shark myth and go after those who are killing them. It takes him into all sorts of deep Costa Rican and Galapagos Islands water, as he joins forces with conservationists protesting the slaughter of sharks for their fins (the soup from which is a pricey lip-smacker). Whatever your feelings about the big fish, Stewart is the persuasive sort, with the resonant delivery of a drama star. His passion is contagious, too, and the underwater photography — as pristine and immediate as any piece of art — is out of this world.
