The psychoanalyst Carl Jung described the ocean as a metaphor for man's subconscious, a vast and mysterious expanse full of secrets and hidden desires. It represents the great unknown, and as such conquering its expanses is something that people have striven to achieve for as long as we've had the technology to construct ships. All Is Lost, the critically acclaimed film by J. C. Chandor and starring Robert Redford as Our Man, the only character to appear, is released on DVD this week. It's an evocative expression of man versus nature, with Redford's central performance holding everything together even as his ship falls apart. In a sense, it can be viewed as a purely metaphysical construction - with little dialogue throughout the entire film and Chandor's bold visual style, it is cinema pared down to its essence. But the ocean - both its surface and the creatures which lurk in its depths - is a versatile setting for a movie, and the following list shows how this seemingly featureless, never-ending vista of rolling waves can provide the backdrop for a wide variety of stories, every bit as intriguing as the landscape of the human psyche found in Carl Jung's metaphor...
