The Big Blue (released in some countries under the French title Le Grand Bleu) is a 1988 film in the French visual style Cinéma du look, made by French director Luc Besson. The film is a highly fictitious and dramatised tale of the friendship and sporting rivalry between two of the most important contemporary free-diving champions of the 20th century: Jacques Mayol (played by Jean-Marc Barr) and Enzo Maiorca (renamed "Enzo Molinari" and played by Jean Reno) and Mayol's fictional relationship with his girlfriend Johana Baker (played by Rosanna Arquette).
The film, which covers his childhood in 1965 in Greece until his death in a Sicilian diving competition of the 1980s, is a cult classic in the diving fraternity and became one of France's most commercially successful films. (although an adaptation for the US premiere was a commercial failure). in that country). French President Jacques Chirac referred to the film by describing Mayol, after his death in 2001, as an enduring symbol for the "Big Blue" generation. [4]
The story was largely adapted to film: in real life, Mayol lived from 1927 to 2001 and Maiorca retired from diving into politics in the 1980s. Both set records for unlimited category deep diving below the 100 meters, and Mayol was involved in scientific research on human aquatic potential, but none reached the 400 feet (122 meters) as shown in the film, and they were not direct competitors. Mayol himself was a screenwriter for the film, [5] and Mayol's search for love, family, "wholeness" and the meaning of life and death, and the conflict and tension between his longing for the deep and his relationship with his girlfriend are also part of the backdrop for the last part of the film.
This film came into my life, initially, through its music a few years after its premiere in France. I didn’t have an idea of this data at that point in my life. Children are blessed by dont be affected data I don't know exactly why the soundtrack composed by maestro Éric Serra ended up in the living room of our house, which at that time was located in the north of the country in a military housing unit. I think my father would have the rank of captain first back then. Always a music lover, it was not surprising that he indulged in luxury, I call it luxury since his rank was not very high and he had a wife and three daughters to support, arriving every week with something new to add to his CD collection. and cassettes. so it would be nice to say that my father was responsible for my first and never unforgettable encounter with ‘Le Grand Bleu’, or at least with his music.
I remember he used to listen to it on this Kenwood brand sound system, another little luxury, which he had also recently bought on the ‘other side’, ‘gringolandia’ or the ‘gabacho’ term that Northerners used to refer to the United States. It was a monstrous black set equipped with a capacity for five CDs, two cassettes, a microphone jack, a self-contained radio that was accompanied by a pair of two huge speakers that were perhaps taller than my nine-year-old self at the time.
Unbeknownst to my father, I spent a large part of my afternoons listening to his music, playing, dancing, singing and in a naughty but innocent way, recording on used cassettes (sorry dad) with a selection of songs to listen to in the car. or on my walkman.
I still remember my top favorites with which I filled all the spaces of the carousel of that stereo. Among them was another great soundtrack: The Bodyguard with that single interpreted by Whitney Houston, and that without knowing it was our curtain for my and my sisters' debut as professional dancers (in our dreams obviously). An Air Supply album with this handwritten typeface that formed the band's logo and which was perhaps my introduction to graphic design. Imagine from John Lennon, the album that has marked the life of the whole world: and of course this beautiful album with its blue exterior.
While I was listening to it, I liked to look at the cover art and the song menu. Of course, at that time I had no idea that I would dedicate myself to doing what I do now. but I liked to take the little book out of its plastic cover and watch. something very similar to when you have cereal for breakfast and look at the box. He always stood out from the rest. For me it was fantastic, it still is; its deep blue tones, the lights that were reflected in the wide night sea and the mysterious silhouette of that person so close to a dolphin in the moonlight. What a perfect image for the mind of a dreamy and introverted girl.
Years later I had the opportunity to see the film without planning it, by pure coincidence, just as things used to happen, by surprise. Just as I found his soundtrack at my house. Coincidences or destiny. The first time I saw that aerial intro of the sea in black and white, accompanied by the opening song of the album, it blew my brain and my heart.
It was such a moment of mine, one of those whose memory keeps you connected with the innocence and fantasies of a childhood that is indescribably left behind ... it fades like dew but that doesn't stop you from moving when you find it again in these kinds of circumstances.
Now with the complete pieces of this story that moves me so much in me, again the panorama changed. Now it was not only about music that I listened to as a child but also about the music that accompanied the story of the young French orphan Jaques Mayol and his talent for free-diving. The relationship with his rival and his friend Enzo Molinari. The deep and for all strange connection of him with the great Mediterranean blue and his adoptive family of dolphins. And of course the meeting, by chance and surprise, with Johana, this young American who was to follow him to the end of the world guided by her heart.
And since she is my turn to pay tribute to this work that has marked me throughout my life.
I thought about all the possible aspects of the narration of the film that could give me the basis for the creation of this poster. My perspective on it over the years has changed so much ... almost at the same rate as myself.
I knew that there are many important narrative elements that are addressed in this film. To speak of a few: the original plot focuses on the history and competition of two friends who since childhood are involved in this rivalry that, rather than separating them, ends up joining as brothers.
We also find the loneliness of an orphan man who finds his home among the waters of a sea that took his father from him and now offered him the only place he recognized as an unconventional but extraordinary home and family (although I I keep wondering who in his holy mind would not love to have such an emotional bond with dolphins? Or maybe I and Jaques are the only ones to take the opportunity if they offered it to us).
There are so many analyzes, opinions, writings and works on this film, it is not in vain recognized as one of the best in the history of cinematography. Its theme, its components, its characters and what the Besson wanted to show with it. This work has been approached, analyzed and honored by experts and fans, like his servant, around the world.
However, I decided to base the idea of this poster, and given the stage of my life in which I was encouraged to make it, on the story between Jacques and Johana.
I recognise myself as an eternal lover of love and although I know that the main story seeks to show the friendship / rivalry between Jaques and Enzo. The main character is always overshadowed by a loneliness that initially brought him the tragic death of his father. which is snatched from the life of his son by what would become his entire universe ... The sea.
I know about that loneliness. I know of that loss. the one that leaves you with doubts. the one that no one else understands. That which happens when you lose a loved one and marks your heart for the rest of you and your interior. that loneliness to which you adapt, you make it your accomplice and it ends up monopolising everything no longer in a painful way, if not poetic. and it gets so deep inside you that you are no longer capable of being or living without it.
I had never had the opportunity to live in the sea until 4 years ago when I came to the Mediterranean and saw it for the first time. For the first time I saw with my own eyes the true Grand Bleu that one in the Jaques Mayol sank leaving behind the love of his life.
Life and the world has changed so much since then when the story of these lovers was told. Many could consider the character of Johana as a silly and not very feminist woman who abandoned everything to follow a selfish madman who ended up leaving her behind pregnant with her child without caring about anything else. Don't worry dear readers. That part I have it very clear.
Even with the above, I would like to give you the opportunity of what is beautiful for me in love ... and I speak of love of any kind. Generosity and compassion. It is true that Jaques was very selfish with Johanna. Although I think he really tried not to be. But, for a being so sunk in that deep loneliness it is almost impossible to give oneself such a material world, so real, so human. Jaques was not part of this world. He had been making the transition between here and the bottom of his fears for a long time. And only there in absolute darkness would he be able to find calm.
This Johanna did not know, not even Enzo understood ... more he had the opportunity to understand when death knocked on his door.
Johanna represented the complete opposite of that abyss to which these men sought to belong. She represented light, earth, intensity, emotions ... the real world. Johana and her baby were the true and only contact Jacques had with reality. A reality full of love, passion. A warm and human reality. An overflowing and disinterested love to the degree that she was the one who let go. The one who released that love, to HIS love of her, even knowing that she will never get it back. And that the deep and immense, cold and distant blue of her had won the great battle, but not the war ...
She was left with the most beautiful fruit that her life had given him the opportunity to experience. Is there not a beautiful and tragic poetry in it?
I never planned to get here. It was not a life goal. But strangely it happened. I wasn't used to being the type to believe in signs. But strangely now I do.
Coincidences stopped being so a while ago. Now I believe in the signs of the universe, I'm not here by chance.
And I think many of us hover between endless loneliness and the infinite light on our human side. That grace that our humanity gives us. For me that is the bottom of this story ... That is the bottom of the Grand Blue.
I am in the habit and lucky enough to swim most of the year. Right in the same waters where Jaques decided to get lost. And there are moments when more than ever I have understood that immense loneliness to which this fictional character surrendered. And although the water is clear, cold and I can see the immense beauty of an endless transparent background, which calls me with its calm and silence. It is faith in humanity… in my humanity that continues to bring me safely back to earth.
And I believe that in the life history of many, the arrival of people is one of the most wonderful things in the life of a human being. Especially from a human being who lives in solitude.
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