Sharks’ Treasure

Topside this was filmed at Bonaire, underwater thousands of miles away in the Coral Sea. This bare calculation figures as the instrumental composition of the piece, which concludes with a vision of the sea seldom equaled.

A group of men fishing up sunken treasure are beset by pirates, after dealing with sharks. The men break free and head for an island, where they fend off their pursuers, and finally retake the boat. It’s as simple as that, elemental really.

The underwater cinematography works its way through the film, but the real work is mainly accomplished in the open sunlight on the afterdeck, broad and flat on the wide sea and blue sky, where the men sit in chairs between dives and are variously seen by the camera in subtly ironic angles (exacerbated by the pirates’ arrival) to build a convincing picture of unruffled beauty (suffused with southern light), dramatically annoyed by senseless savagery, directed with a certain amount of seeming idleness and fortuitous editing (accounting for its poor critical reception). It’s slowly entrancing, however, until the island sequence reveals its heading.

The men have overpowered a sufficient number of the pirates to commandeer a small boat or raft and make their escape. By and by, they approach the island, and Wilde has a POV shot of the rocky shore and crashing surf which is tellingly effective. They’re shot at from the boat, struggle ashore, and flee among the well-filmed flora and crags (an echo of The Naked Prey).

What matters, finally, is the view of the beach after all this storm and stress, the ocean is perceived in its physicality as an element in its wholeness, almost a character, and this, along with the general disposition of Antillean luminosity, is what justifies the artistic gamble of the film, even in the face of almost total rejection and Ebert’s japery.

The cast includes Yaphet Kotto and Wilde himself, with Cliff Osmond as the pirate leader, Lobo. Robert O. Ragland’s score is not fooled for a moment, but takes its inspiration from the film itself and is repaid continually.