The Silent World (1956)

Director:  Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Louis Malle.
Writers:  Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
Stars:  Frédéric Dumas, Albert Falco, Jacques-Yves Cousteau.    
Runtime:  86 minutes    

Plot: This pioneering nature documentary investigates aquatic habitats in various locations around the world. It doesn't shy away from the brutality present in the natural world, but it also paints a fascinating picture of underwater exploration.

Review: People who dote on adventures at sea are in for an hour and twenty-six minutes of pictorial marvels and thrills when they see this film. Capt. Jacques-Yves Cousteau's "The Silent World", is an account of oceanographic exploration on and below the surface of the sea is surely the most beautiful and fascinating documentary of its sort ever filmed.

With a sense of amazement, and with remarkable technical skill in surface and underwater exploration and colour photography, Cousteau and his team of skin-divers have produced a marine adventure film that combines the experience of looking at marvels with a wonderful intimacy. They have put the personnel of their research ship, the Calypso, as it ranges the Mediterranean and Red Seas, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, in contact with the creatures of the deep in such a way as to make the contrasts much more striking and wonderful than would be the mere fascinations if they were simply viewed objectively.

Reviewed by Mohaiminul Islam