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11 July 2020 13:25I have gone absolutely wild for the Pirates of the Caribbean series since lockdown began. It's not only that the writing & fight choreography is so brill: I don't think I can name another source that does sea mythology so well. The tales of sailors, as uncanny as the fairy tales of old wives, and as blackly gothic as isolated homesteaders in the American west.
As someone who finds Fear Of The Sea spiritually meaningful, I have a list as long as yer arm of "bad things happening at sea" movies. Das Boot being my top recommendation; others like Open Water and the game Abzu which I find absolutely unwatchable.
But none of these are mythic. I love how many pirate lore touchstones the series hits - each film has a very different aesthetic, from zombie-skeletons to barnacle-encrusted fishmen, from the kraken to charybdis; its depictions of curses, artifacts, of the double-edged nature of magic, and pugatory; those extremely unsettling boats of the dead, the haunting image of lost souls carrying little corpse candles; the character design of international pirate crews; little touches like a magic compass which points wherever you want to go, or an island that can only be found by those who already know where it is, the binding of the goddess of the sea (Calypso is part of the Landmother archetype), doomed sailors in purgatory gambling with years of servitude, the construction of Pirate as a kind of radical counter-cultural identity; the sense that Davy Jones - fated to escort the souls of the damned - exists in mythic time, that when he approaches injured sailors on a sunken ship and asks them if they want to join his crew, they are already dead, pulled into a place between worlds (for when you survive a shipwreck on a raft, floating in open water, can you really be said to be alive any more?); or the deep sadness of Davy Jones' love for the sea, loving her and hating her for the wilful inconsistency of her nature, the deep sadness of wives left at home with a husband or son upon the sea, only seeing him every 10 years
I remember at the time, it being this comedy adventure Captain Jack movie with fantasy elements. But this isn't "fantasy adventure" - this is myth. This is fairy tale with mermaids: everything has a price.
I really underestimated it. And I've seen the entire series twice since lockdown started, that's how wild I've gone for it.
(Even the fourth one - while badly paced - has these incredible elements, like the idea of a captain who is dreaded because he has mastery over the winds)
And I literally can't think of another film that does the mythos of the sea so well.
As someone who finds Fear Of The Sea spiritually meaningful, I have a list as long as yer arm of "bad things happening at sea" movies. Das Boot being my top recommendation; others like Open Water and the game Abzu which I find absolutely unwatchable.
But none of these are mythic. I love how many pirate lore touchstones the series hits - each film has a very different aesthetic, from zombie-skeletons to barnacle-encrusted fishmen, from the kraken to charybdis; its depictions of curses, artifacts, of the double-edged nature of magic, and pugatory; those extremely unsettling boats of the dead, the haunting image of lost souls carrying little corpse candles; the character design of international pirate crews; little touches like a magic compass which points wherever you want to go, or an island that can only be found by those who already know where it is, the binding of the goddess of the sea (Calypso is part of the Landmother archetype), doomed sailors in purgatory gambling with years of servitude, the construction of Pirate as a kind of radical counter-cultural identity; the sense that Davy Jones - fated to escort the souls of the damned - exists in mythic time, that when he approaches injured sailors on a sunken ship and asks them if they want to join his crew, they are already dead, pulled into a place between worlds (for when you survive a shipwreck on a raft, floating in open water, can you really be said to be alive any more?); or the deep sadness of Davy Jones' love for the sea, loving her and hating her for the wilful inconsistency of her nature, the deep sadness of wives left at home with a husband or son upon the sea, only seeing him every 10 years
I remember at the time, it being this comedy adventure Captain Jack movie with fantasy elements. But this isn't "fantasy adventure" - this is myth. This is fairy tale with mermaids: everything has a price.
I really underestimated it. And I've seen the entire series twice since lockdown started, that's how wild I've gone for it.
(Even the fourth one - while badly paced - has these incredible elements, like the idea of a captain who is dreaded because he has mastery over the winds)
And I literally can't think of another film that does the mythos of the sea so well.
