Oldies time, as i’ve not yet run out of pre-Jaws shark films to cover, apparently,
And it’s oddly a wholesome one, too, as Tiko And The Shark (Ti-Koyo E Il Suo Pescecane) is the age old tale of a bond between a boy and his…. shark. Yeah.
An Italian-France coproduction by Titanus filmed in french Polynesia (the Taomatu island, specifically) and loosely based on the novel “Ti-Koyo And His Shark” by Clement Richer (though basically rewritten by Italo Calvino to be more of a fable here), the film is indeed about the friendship between Ti-Koyo, borne into a Pacific island village of fishermen, whom as a child finds a baby shark while fishing, dubbing it “Manidù”. Some years later, both grown up, they reunite and fish for oyster pearls in a secret laguna that was also their refuge when they were younger.
It sound a bit like a charming “boy and his dog” sort of story focused on their unusual friendship (being a shark and all), a cute fable-esque maritime tale of unlikely friendship between man and usually untamed nature… so imagine my surprise to see most of the thing dedicated to Tiko/Ti-Koyo’s romance with a female love interest, instead of him spending time with his shark friend.
No i didn’t want him to romance the shark, as incredible as that would have been, i know about Dolphin Love so no thanks, i’m “good” on that regard, nor did i expect him to hang around with Gawr Gura (whom also graduated at the time of writing this, FIY), but this whole romance subplot might have been cute… if it didn’t eventually eclipse the intended-marketed focus, i wanna see Tiko go on whimsical underwater adventures with his shark buddy.
It’s not that this romance subplot is malign or what, it’s just so tacked on, managing to have more time dedicated to it than it should, yet not having enough developement to make some sense or add to the film in a positive way, especially since the love interest just goes away for literal years and yet when she does it feels a bit forced to see her basically “do a Tarzan”, reaching the island and then eventually giving up her previous lifestyle to adapt to Ti-Koyo’s still frugal and traditional way of living despite everyone else having adaptated… at least it does happen at the very end, not immediatly, but still…
Also, watch out for potential seizure during the “mirror group fishing scenes”, jesus, as they stun the fish with sunbeam reflected from pocket mirrors, thank god i’m not epyleptic because i might have die by the hands of fuckin Tiko And His Shark, of all films.
Yes, i kinda get it that it would be quite hard to get the shark to “emote” and shit, and it’s reasonable to expect the movie would be also about Tikoyo’s village, his small little world, the slice of life stuff, like him talking the to old man/witchdoctor/merchant that everyone trusts as a kind of “sage”.
But it really would have benefitted from being just about Tikoyo and his shark friend Manidù, as this romantic subplot really isn’t great, not awful, but it just gets in the way and it’s overused, as is the voiceover narration, perfectly fine at the beginning as Ti-Koyo himself narrates about his youth, but instead of dying down or stopping when Tikoyo is grown up, it ramps ups, all contributing to just making the film longer than needed, clocking in at almost 2 hours.
Shame because it’s not a bad film, it’s fine, the music is nice, the photography is good, it’s a charming little movie in its own right, it just feels bloated with expendable fluff, and initially had a sad ending, which would have fit better, since it has that “bittersweet” vibe, but we’re selling it abroad, the Americans will find it to be “a bummer” if the shark (or the protagonist) dies at the end, so they had to recut the last scenes in order to give it a.. happier ending.
Still a nice little piece of shark film history and something a bit different.
Wise Cafe (International) 