A LIFE ILLUMINATED – Review by Loren King
To sink into the dark depths of the ocean with pioneering marine biologist Dr. Edie Widder is nothing less than a transformative experience. Watching the documentary A Life Illuminated, we witness Widder’s decades-long research into bioluminescence — the dazzling phenomenon of ocean creatures, far from sunlight, that produce illumination and turn the pitch-black undersea into a galaxy that rivals the cosmos. Widder and her crew capture this breathtaking footage that is itself illuminating: it opens the eyes and the mind to life in a place we would never see were it not for the tenacious work of scientists like Widder.
The spacecraft-like vessel, equipped with advanced recording equipment, that makes the journey far into the depths of the ocean recalls voyages to outer space. Futuristic in its technology and ambition, the world we visit is stunningly ancient. The explosions of light and changing colors in a black infinity, accompanied by Widden’s expressions of joy and wonder at the sight, gives the film a power beyond her breakthroughs as a scientist.
Technology plays a critical role. Widder possesses not only the requisite curiosity and vision but she also has the skills and tenacity to develop advanced camera systems needed for this kind of exploration and documentation, not to mention the endless fundraising needed for her expeditions.
Director Tasha Van Zandt, whose credits include After Antarctica (2021), not only captures the otherworldly underwater footage, she also chronicles Widder’s extraordinary personal story. Besides overcoming pervasive sexism in the scientific community even today, as a young graduate student she lost her eyesight after spinal surgery and was blind for a period of time. One couldn’t ask for a more apt metaphor for a determined and visionary scientist whose life’s work is about new ways of seeing.
