Sharkwater
Undersea photographer Rob Stewart, who directed, wrote, narrated, stars in, and helped shoot "Sharkwater," really, really loves sharks. He also fears for their future on the planet. His lively documentary makes you see why, on both counts.
"It's perfect," Stewart says of the shark, "and it doesn't want to hurt you, and it's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen." There's an ecstatic quality to his undersea footage. Stewart almost gives off a "Grizzly Man" vibe as he swims with sharks, feeds them, and, yes, pets them. But he knows his stuff, as the bear-besotted protagonist of Werner Herzog's remarkable 2005 documentary did not.
Stewart quickly addresses, and refutes, the many fears humans have of sharks. "The fact is sharks don't eat people," Stewart tells us. "If they did, I'd have been dead a long time ago." This is one case where seeing is definitely believing.
Most of "Sharkwater" consists of picture-postcard ocean footage interspersed with shark-friendly commentary from talking-head experts. But Stewart does include hilarious excerpts from a decades-old US Air Force documentary on repelling shark attacks. It's almost as funny as the statistic he cites that soda machines kill more people annually than sharks do.
Such humor is welcome. Although "Sharkwater" has elements of Discovery Channel-style naturefest, it's actually much darker. In fact, it's an exposé. Stewart's main concern is publicizing the global trade in shark fins and the catastrophic effect it's had on the number of sharks worldwide.
Shark fin soup is a delicacy in much of Asia, and shark fins sell for up to $200 a pound. Fishermen are netting millions of sharks annually, cutting off their fins, and throwing them back in the ocean to die. Well, they're just sharks, viewers might say, and even if they don't really threaten people, good riddance to them. Such a response overlooks the essential job sharks do regulating the population of plankton-eating fish. If the amount of plankton in the ocean goes down, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will go up. Think of "Sharkwater" as half of an unexpected double bill with "An Inconvenient Truth."
Stewart spent four years making "Sharkwater," compiling 400 hours of footage. That may help account for how episodic the documentary feels. (Its other great failing, tendentiousness, springs from Stewart's passionate commitment to the material, which is no less wearying for being understandable.) The documentary goes from shark love (his) to shark fear (ours) to shark depletion (the planet's) to a voyage in pursuit of illegal shark fishing (unsuccessful) to Costa Rican protests against that fishing (upbeat).
Along the way, we visit the Galapagos, learn of the role of the Taiwanese mafia in the shark fin trade, watch Stewart battle a life-threatening staph infection. We also have to put up with the overbearing presence of self-appointed eco-guardian Paul Watson, the leader of the shark-protection voyage (he's profiled in the current New Yorker). Stewart isn't all that easy to take himself. Ardently unself-conscious and thrummingly energetic, he's Dane Cook channeling Jacques Cousteau. Stewart's irrepressibility makes us appreciate all the more the sharks' silent majesty.
Mark Feeney can be reached at mfeeney@globe.com.
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