The Abyss was brought out in 1989. The science-fiction film was Cameron’s most ambitious project to date. He had however not been given carte blanche. And that is why we are now showing the director’s cut.Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio are as good as divorced. Both belong to a team of divers that has to rescue a sunken nuclear submarine before a hurricane strikes. They are not adequately helped by the Navy Seals that are technically in charge of the operation. It becomes spectacular when Harris heads into the deep; he finds himself in a new world under water where funny jelly-fish/butterfly beings tell of the world and man’s inhumanity.Director Cameron: ‘The abyss is an icily cold place in almost complete darkness where the suns’s rays never penetrate. It is a deserted and cursed place, almost devoid of life. It has also scarcely been investigated. We know less about the depths of the oceans than about the depths of space. At a certain point in the film, each individual faces his or her own abyss. The Abyss is an action film; its subject is however not the action but human existence. It is a positive film, full of hope and with a message: if we want to survive as a species we shall have to change. The theme of the contact with a superior power, a final power with the authority to judge, is intrinsic in a film focusing on love and personal sacrifice.’Lawrence Cohn in Variety: ‘For filmgoers, this half-hour longer film is far more satisfying than the 1989 version, representing both a gruelling and exhilarating theatrical experience’.
