The North Sea, as even its greatest admirers will concede, often glowers an unappetising grey or brown. And we assume that its dull exterior is matched by sediment-filled waters where little life dwells. For years, the friends and family of Peter van Rodijnen wondered why the Dutch cinematographer and diving fanatic spent so much time exploring “this murky bowl of soup”.
But, inspired by a childhood of watching Jacques Cousteau’s adventures in rather more enticingly temperate waters, Van Rodijnen’s dedication to North Sea diving gradually revealed its hidden wonders. Over 20 years, as camera technology improved, Van Rodijnen obtained more and more amazing footage of marine life near his home on the Netherlands coast. Nearly a decade ago, he teamed up with director Mark Verkerk.
Despite decades of intensive fishing, oil extraction and multiple other exploitations, parts of the North Sea are still alive with luminous pinks, purples and greens; starfish, lobsters, brittle stars, kelp forests, seals and basking sharks. This hidden wilderness may be almost as spectacular as a tropical reef, even if the Great Barrier Reef, where Van Rodijnen began his diving career, is much more accessible. Part of the reason we rarely comprehend the marine riches of the North Sea is because of epic plankton blooms that, as the film explains, are actually the foundation of this living ecosystem.
These annual eruptions feed its whole pyramid of marine life but, combined with the shallow waters and big tides, frequently make underwater visibility too poor to film. It is incredibly difficult.” Van Rodijnen, who narrates the film in a charmingly personal way, meticulously assembled his underwater stories from decades of North Sea diving. But during their seven-year shoot, the film-makers faced multiple last-minute cancellations of carefully scheduled trips to join fishers or windfarm construction sites alongside even less predictable attempts to intercept dolphin, bluefin tuna and basking sharks.
Four out of every five planned dives in the North Sea were cancelled because of rough seas. It’s about patience but it’s more about persistence. You need to just keep pushing to get the shots.
I had some sleepless nights, I can tell you.” Although North Sea, Nature Untamed is awash with charismatic characters – from supersmart orcas to the conscientious shorthorn sculpins that nurse neon-pink eggs until they grow eyes and squiggle out into the dark water – the documentary does not lead with obvious or familiar marine stars. Fishing and overfishing continues to shape the North Sea, and the film reveals the impact of sand eel decline on puffins and follows Van Rodijnen on to a Dutch fishing boat. The boat is a clean, conscientious operation that prides itself on its sustainable methods, eschewing beam or bottom trawling, in which heavy beams and nets plough – and obliterate – the seabed and much of its life.
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