Playing with Sharks (2021)
- Reviewed from the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
Archival footage is the undeniable highlight of this portrait of shark fanatic Valerie Taylor, with a wealth of richly coloured and crisp film material depicting her early days as a spearfisher and later underwater photographer. Valerie devoted much of her life to the “submarines with teeth” as a pioneering woman in the field and, alongside her husband Ron, captured the depths of oceanic life, including filming the real sharks for Jaws.
In seeking a redemptive arc Sally Aitken’s conventionally structured and largely fawning film falls short of a thorough interrogation of the pair’s own role in exacerbating a public terror of sharks through their work, although their subsequent conservation efforts have proven valiant.