For this blog, I watched and analyzed well reviewed documentary A Plastic Ocean produced by Jo Ruxton where it goes into details into different experiences with marine life and their interactions with plastics.

The documentary starts out with an analysis of blue whales, yet the most impactful part of this documentary starts right in the first five minutes, depicting the blue whales surrounding and obstructed by the copious amounts of plastic in their natural environments. This type of imagery is featured below, and was continuously presented throughout the field to remind the audience the true intentions and progress the agenda of the film as a whole.

As the documentary continues it depicts different divers stories and accounts that feature their interactions with marine life and the plastic debris that they interact with on a daily basis. The documentary depicts the estimated the 2 million tons of plastic, just from water bottles, that the United States puts into the landfills each year and only continues to detail the problems with population growth and lack of recycling responsibilities.

As the documentary progresses the film projects the lifespan of trash and plastic pollution, using animation to depict how debris, even if found in landlocked lakes or landfills can eventually find their way into streams, eventually landing in our oceans. The documentary continues to use lots of camera and video footage to show the sea floor, with hundred of plastic debris sitting and decaying down where sunlight never hits. Another feature in the film shows a team of marine scientist are interview for the research efforts toward different microplastics in the ocean, which is interesting because the documentary discusses all ranges of pollution and how that would effect the marine life, such as diet or endangerment. The documentary continues to follow the different scientist and first hand accounts that depict their relationship with the ocean, the plastic debris, and the marine life they interact with for their careers and studies. They follow divers, marine conservationist, dietitians, landfill employee’s, parents, and major plastic manufactures in order to understand and highlight that the plastic problem effects every individual in human nature.

Something I really liked about this film was all the underwater media that they presented throughout the film that gives the audience a very real and understandable idea of what is truly under the surface. A major critique on human nature is our inability to really understand what is not put directly in front of our eyes, and it is documentaries and films such as this one that allow people to become more open minded and concerned with the marine plastic pollution issue.

One quote from the documentary that was really impactful was “the plastic is coating our land like a disease” and if I had to pick an overall theme and understandable goal of the film, it would be their intentional language that constructs the audience to deeply understand the tumultuous issue that is the United States major issue with plastic pollution and lack of responsibility for treating marine plastic pollution

Although most industries of information or entertainment have some forms of bias, the only major bias I believe was in this film featured the aggressive progressive attitude towards cleaning the ocean in order to decrease the immense harm that plastic pollution puts onto innocent marine animals. I think the film, although overall heartbreaking to watch, does an excellent job at using different imagery as long as excellent information to grab the audiences attention to promote hope for action.