Deep in the mystic ocean

Bangkok’s International Festival of Music and Dance presented a decidedly different kind of show on Monday night, gazing out on the vast, mystical sea with a screening of the BBC documentary “The Blue Planet”, grandly accompanied by an orchestra and choir.
Richard Harvery conducted the orchestra and Bangkok Post editor-in-chief Pichai Chuensuksawadi provided commentary in English between scenes as the award-winning programme filled a huge screen in the Thailand Cultural Centre’s Main Hall.
The music composed by Oscar-nominated George Fenton was evocative and stirring throughout. At 7.30 a roll of drums signalled the appearance of a massive blue whale, more than 30 metres long, weighing 200 tonnes and with a heart the size of a car.
As its tremendous tail rose from the water on the vast high-definition screen, the orchestral score swelled. It was a mesmerising moment.
The dazzling underwater footage of “The Blue Planet” was shot over the course of 10 years at 200 locales around the world. The audience is taken deep beneath the surface to witness the strange life and savage truths of survival.
There were killer whales, dolphins, emperor penguins, seagull, seals, polar bears and many rare marine creatures in all sizes, shapes and colours.
Among the scenes never before captured on film was a seven-minute segment of a seal pup being dragged out to sea by a monstrous killer whale.
The screen was big enough to do the documentary justice, and yet you couldn’t help wishing it were Imax-size so that blue whale would be genuinely monumental!
Every movie screening ought to have a live orchestra and choir. They accentuated every turn of emotion in the film and made it seem as though the action was actually happening right in front of our eyes.
It was too bad the screening was split into parts, with pauses for Pichai to explain the background. Surely this could have been done with subtitles, letting viewers marvel at the wonderful creatures and enjoy the music uninterrupted.