Chas­ing Coral

Twen­ty-two per cent of the Great Bar­ri­er Reef died in 2016. It’s a fact very few peo­ple are aware of and the mis­sion of direc­tor Jeff Orlows­ki and his team of divers and under­wa­ter pho­tog­ra­phers to uncov­er. Cli­mate change is real and an eco­log­i­cal col­lapse is already under­way. Sea tem­per­a­tures are ris­ing and entire ecosys­tems are at risk. The planet’s coral is dying. Chas­ing Coral explains why it’s time we start­ed tak­ing notice.

A sequel of sorts to Orlowski’s 2012 doc­u­men­tary, Chas­ing Ice, this new work steers its cam­eras away from Earth’s melt­ing glac­i­ers to beneath its watery sur­face, where the 2016 coral bleach­ing event is tak­ing place. Bleach­ing, explained by Coral Reef Biol­o­gist Ruth Gates, is a stress response from our oceans’ coral. As sea tem­per­a­tures rise, the plants that live with­in the coral can­not feed their ani­mal host and so the coral begins to eject the per­ceived for­eign bod­ies. It’s the equiv­a­lent of the human body los­ing its nutri­ents when it attempts to flush out bac­te­ria dur­ing a fever – only the fever will nev­er go away. Coral is turn­ing white the world over; it’s expos­ing its skele­ton as it starves and slow­ly perishes.

The film fol­lows a team of divers who under­take the ambi­tious task of set­ting up time-lapse cam­eras on the ocean floor in order to cap­ture the bleach­ing phe­nom­e­non and encour­age action before it is too late. It is a des­per­ate plea to save this com­plex and intel­li­gent under­wa­ter crea­ture, upon whom we rely for the fish we eat, the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals we use and the con­tin­u­a­tion of a healthy ocean and, there­fore, a healthy planet.

The cin­e­matog­ra­phy is breath-tak­ing, from stun­ning under­wa­ter images of colour­ful, healthy corals and bright trop­i­cal fish to beau­ti­ful shots of the div­ing team on the beach as the sun sets on anoth­er busy day. In one mes­meris­ing scene, we are pre­sent­ed with coral that is glow­ing in var­i­ous shades, from bright white to lilac. It is a beau­ti­ful sight until the real­i­ty is revealed: the coral is emit­ting a pro­tec­tive chem­i­cal sun­screen, attempt­ing to deflect the heat that is killing them. It is a ​“beau­ti­ful phase of death”, says a mem­ber of the team. It is as though the corals are scream­ing, ​“please notice”.

The beau­ty of Chas­ing Coral enhances the tragedy of its find­ings, and when the team’s time-lapse cam­eras prove inef­fec­tive the emo­tions hit hard. Under­wa­ter cam­era tech­ni­cian Zack Rago, a self-pro­fessed ​“coral nerd”, begins man­u­al­ly tak­ing pho­tos each day to cre­ate a time-lapse of the Great Bar­ri­er Reef. His pain at see­ing a once thriv­ing under­wa­ter habi­tat crum­ble is pal­pa­ble, and the image of him swim­ming through a des­o­late waste­land will stay with you long after the cred­its roll.