Nautilus
A dominant force spanning the globe, across both land and sea, more powerful than any single nation or individual government, stealing wealth, claiming territory and enslaving populations, its will enforced by its own private army, the British East India Mercantile Company answers to no agency or individual, pushing an own agenda of ruthless commercial expansion mediated through exploitation and technological progress.
The Company always looking for new avenues for profit, at a prison camp in Kalpani on the coast of India under the hawklike gaze of Director Crawley the plan for the domination of a new realm is taking form, an astonishing submersible vessel designed by the genius engineer Gustave Benoit who has been promised that it will be used for peaceful exploration of the seas when in fact it will instead be another tool for the company to control shipping lanes and access to ports.
Benoit having taken into his confidence an inmate of the camp whom the other prisoners look up to who has adopted the name Nemo, refusing to give any other clue to his former life before he was incarcerated though it is known that he was sent to be educated in Britain, he believes that together they can seize the vessel and use it to escape Kalpani, their slim hope for freedom resting in the metal hull of the Nautilus.
A ten-episode television show developed by James Dormer and based on the fantastical creations of “father of science fiction” Jules Verne, it was in 1869 that the explorer, avenger and defender of the oceans Captain Nemo first appeared in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Vingt Mille Lieues sous les mers), the adventure with which the character remains associated with many unaware that The Mysterious Island (L’Île mystérieuse) of 1874 established him as the deposed Prince Dakkar of Bundelkhand.
That tale casting light on the wrongs which shaped the enigmatic captain who waged war on the world above the waves, Nautilus is not an adaptation of either book but something novel which takes inspiration from the ideas of Verne, with Nemo trying to outrun his past, his doubts and his demons, a man of peace forced to fight and aware that he will be judged by his companions for every compromise he is forced to make in order for them all to survive, played with suitably roguish charisma by Shazad Latif in a role traditionally cast as Caucasian.
Nemo’s crew a diverse band of those deemed undesirable by the company, Indians, a Māori, an African and more, they include loyal but inexperienced first officer Boniface (Pacharo Mzembe), reserved but dependable Jiacomo (Andrew Shaw) and Suyin (Ling Cooper Tang) alongside benevolent Benoit (Thierry Frémont) whose French ancestry can be presumed to represent Verne, later taking aboard Humility Lucas (Georgia Flood), also an engineer, her acerbic companion Loti (Céline Menville) and Blaster (Kayden Price), adopted as cabin boy.
Any gratitude for their rescue tempered by the knowledge it was their host who caused their shipwreck en route to Bombay where Miss Lucas was to rendezvous with her fiancé, the prideful Lord Algernon Pitt (Cameron Cuffe) joins the hunt alongside Director Crawley (Damien Garvey) and Captain Youngblood (Jacob Collins-Levy), humiliated by the sinking of the Fair Wind, its wooden hull split and its mast splintering as it went down, now commanding the monstrosity of the steel-hulled Dreadnought, impervious to the serrated prow of the Nautilus.
The power of the Company absolute, with no safe ports in which to negotiate for supplies Nemo must become more than a man who issues orders, a captain who leads his crew through troubled times and dangerous waters, not only keeping them alive but starting the spark of revolution in the oppressed peoples of the region, the Nautilus a vessel of hope which leaves change in its wake, the weapon of a cruel system now turned against its former masters.
The sixty plus volumes of his Voyages extraordinaires having encompassed many genres and bold ideas which find expression in the show, there is a sense Verne would have enjoyed the world of Nautilus with its eccentrics and adventurers, eyes open in wonder at the marvels in the depths of the ocean, the desire for scientific enquiry curtailed by the need to find safety from the pursuit of the unforgiving officers of the Company, dedicated their righteous duty of punishing a native upstart who has dared to challenge the natural order of their society.
The escalation of warfare as it encompasses new methods of destruction and the subjugation of populations recurring themes of Verne’s work from The Begum’s Millions (dramatised as The Secret of Steel City) to Master of the World which inform this new version, shot on Australia’s Gold Coast the production values of Nautilus are unsinkable, the salons and cabins of the submarine more generous than the claustrophobic equivalents of Das Boot but in keeping with the original vision and appropriate for a fast moving underwater fantasia of action and adventure which captures the spirit of its creator.
Nautilus will launch exclusively on Prime Video in the UK and Ireland with all ten episodes available on Friday 25th October, 2024; this review is based on the first three episodes, all directed by Michael Matthews, Anahata and Tick, Tick, Boom, both written by James Dormer, and What Lies Beneath, written by Matthew Parkhill
