The end credits confirm genAI was used for parts of Titanic Ocean. This is a disgraceful choice by writer-director Konstantina Kotzamani because it insults all the hard work of her cast and crews. This is especially unforgivable because the young actresses had to do a large amount of underwater work for this film, which could have been dangerous, expensive and also very beautiful. But because it explicitly tells us AI was used in Titanic Ocean, nothing here can be trusted, and audiences should stay away.
The idea is this: in Tokyo there’s a special boarding school that trains teenage girls to become professional “mermaids,” aka divers who can perform underwater shows at water parks around the world. The girls all color their hair and are known exclusively by their mermaid identities – just like Sailor Moon, but damp – and the heroine is known to all as Deep Sea (Arisa Sasaki). Why yes, the song “I Follow Rivers” by Lykke Li is her personal motif. Deep Sea has the idea that the greatest achievement for a mermaid is the seduction of a shark. This idea becomes obsession when she is saved from a diving accident by kindly teacher Kotaro (Masahiro Higashide). Kotaro is a good teacher and also not interested in molesting teenage girls, but Deep Sea manages to convince herself they’re in love. And in the crowded, cluttered dorms where various teenage girls spend their free time squabbling and being mean to each other, secrets don’t last long.
But none of this matters, because since AI was used, we can’t care about any of this. The pacing is too slow, the musical cues are very much overused, and the ending is both visually sloppy and very, very bad, but all that might have been all right if only human intelligence had created the film. This was Ms. Kotzamani’s first film and maybe she cracked under the pressure and decided to cheat. It doesn’t matter – it’s unacceptable under any circumstances and should stop her career in its tracks. And that means Titanic Ocean is not a movie at all but a terrible mistake.
Titanic Ocean recently played at the Cannes Film Festival.
Learn more about the film at the IMDB site for the title.
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