#241: Beneath The Waves

Beneath The Waves is a gripping BBC documentary based around the dubious legend of The Bermuda Triangle. Made in 2004 by documentary specialist Nigel Patterson, it gives an account of the ill-fated Flight19 led by a commander that in 1943 after taking off from Fort Lauderdale never returned. The commander was in charge of a group of five other airborne fighter crafts and was in close contact with the base radio station at Fort Lauderdale on their way back. However, what was a routine recci turned out to be a nightmare for the five aircrafts as they soon lose contact and struggle to find their way back.

Patterson takes an interesting approach to narrating the incident as he dramatizes the incident of disappearance and simultaneously in the present takes the conventional route of interviews with naval physicists and other experts to explain the vanishing act. The documentary keeps going back and forth between these two settings and arrives at a firm conclusion. With a keen sense of intrigue, the film absorbs you with its mysterious tenor. The best thing about the film being the fact that some of the findings about Bermuda Triangle are shown to the audience as and when the experts came across them. This made the viewing experience eminently engaging.

What's a pity though is that in spite of mentioning repeatedly in the film that the Bermuda Triangle was the seat of an ominous spell of sorts, it goes little beyond explaining that one incident of 1943. Watching it one couldn't help but think how interesting it would've been to know more about the Bermuda Triangle. Nevertheless, Beneath the Waves is a brave attempt and deserves every minute of it's short running time of less than an hour.

Rating: 6.7/10