Will we see anything more heartwarming at this year’s VIFF than archival footage of Jacques Mayol teaching a baby otter to swim? The animal itself seems mostly interested in chittering affectionately into his friend’s ear. Acquaintances recall how dolphins were also reliably fascinated by this extraordinary human, who set multiple free-diving records in a life that included as much roguishness as it did spiritual seeking. The mustachioed Frenchman would eventually reject the competitive side of the sport, retiring at one point to a monastery and achieving, we’re told, a state of Zen. But he also took time out in the ’70s to make the world’s first and only underwater hard-core porno, set off the coast of Bermuda and titled, naturally, The Lure of the Triangle. This massively entertaining doc—which has something important to imply about western thinking and the trashing of our oceans—is narrated by Jean-Marc Barr, who played Mayol in Luc Besson’s The Big Blue. The man himself apparently didn’t care too much for the finished movie.

Published September, 2016