Sunday, November 17, 2024

Turtle Walker (2024) DOC NYC 2024


This is a portrait of  Satish Bhaskar who walked nearly the entire coastline of India and chronicled the state of the sea turtle population.

An interview with Bhaskar is mixed with some spectacular images of sea turtles and recreation of his life. It's a look at a man whose work has helped preserve the lives of countless turtles.

I'm very mixed on this film.  I love the subject, I love the images, oh how I love the images, but I don't love the presentation. The problem is that there is too much use of recreations. We are constantly looking at sequences of Bhaskar at various ages. That might have worked but the film loves to use rapid cuts, especially of him at various ages, for no really good reason.  Watching the film I was constantly distracted by the technical virtuosity rather than the subject. It kills me because the talk by Bhaskar and the images of the turtles are so good it doesn't need anything else.

I'm bitching because if the filmmakers had just trusted the subject and the images this film would have been truly great instead of just good.

My kvetching aside, this is still worth a look, especially if you can see it big.

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