The harrowing life of a loggerhead sea turtle is explored, from hatching to the day that turtle returns to the beach where it was born to lay its own eggs, in “
Turtle: The Incredible Journey,” a documentary new to theaters this weekend.
It’s a bit long to be as kid friendly as this educational and visually striking film is meant to be. But it will give you a renewed appreciation for who these creatures are, where they go and why the many threatened and endangered species of sea turtles are worth saving.
Miranda Richardson (“Enchanted April,” “Made in Dagenham”) affectingly narrates this 20-plus year life journey, which begins on an unnamed beach in Florida. We see what a turtle might see as it pokes its head out of the shell and struggles for three long days to dig its way out.
“Every baby turtle must start its life, buried alive.”
As anyone who has ever seen a nature film on these animals knows, that struggle is merely the first menace this animal faces. Then there’s the mad dash past the diving gulls and ravenous land crabs to the sea, “into the unknown abyss” and into the Gulf Stream.
We see the many threats facing the turtle — natural predators and fishermen, oil spills and “the great warming of the Earth and the rising of the seas.” The turtle we follow rides the Gulf Stream north to the rocky shores of Canada’s Maritime Provinces, and down to the Azores, spending 15 years or so years maturing in the Caribbean, where pollution and rising temperatures threaten the coral reefs where it hangs out.
Every onslaught of jellyfish on a favorite beach has its connection to the environmental pressure the various turtles are under. Sea turtles dine on jellyfish, morning noon and night. “Turtle” shows us that, in gorgeous extreme close-up.
The underwater photography in Nick Stringer’s film sets it apart from most documentaries of this genre. The camera chases the baby turtle down the beach, into the water and on out to sea, where a handy raft of sea grass is her home as she takes her first ride on the Gulf Stream. Migrating pods of dolphins and a small blue shark — apparently uninterested in sea turtles as a meal — accompany her on various parts of the journey. The film uses the presence of the shark to point out the danger facing sharks, the soaring appetite for shark fin soup.
But this “Incredible Journey,” produced by SeaWorld Pictures, would pass muster with Disney in the ways it keeps our heroine afloat for 80 minutes. Even a threat from a longline trawler has a happy ending.
The only things that work against this film is a certain monotony in the deep blue images, the constant gurgling of the water and the soft spoken narration. As fascinating as these creatures are in their natural habitat, it’s almost enough to lull you to sleep. And the turtles are the only ones who should sleep with the fishes.
