I found this drivel on Netflix. I like good documentaries of new archeological discoveries and the prospect of a treasure hoard from an ancient wreck looked worthwhile. Fairly quickly I began to suspect it wasn't what it purported to be. The first glimpses of the treasure showed items which seemed strangely out of place. Too well preserved, too modern in style, or too many different periods of history to be consistent with the time period proposed for the wreck (First Century AD). Large, complicated bronze castings which could not have been made except by modern means. Too many things just laid on the sea floor. Like a badly covered up crime scene, it was all too convenient, too clean, and felt all wrong. I did a quick search online and learned it was all a high-concept promotional film for an immense installation of billionaire artist Damien Hurst's work in a Venice art museum. This "documentary" is an expensive, badly directed and poorly executed hour-long infomercial for a multimillion dollar art auction. What galls me is that this act of charlatanry seriously misrepresents the legitimate science of marine archaeology, depicting it as nothing better than Lara Croft-style tombraiding. There are no disclaimers at start or finish to distinguish this from a real documentary. A less intuitive viewer might be led to believe this is how wrecks are discovered and artworks retrieved and preserved (basically it's a how-to guide for plundering). The only clues are some clever wink-nudge items like a barnacle encrusted statue of Mickey Mouse shown at the very end. This attempt at infotainment in the guise of science discredits the artist (purely egotistical self agrandisement), discredits documentary filmmaking (calls authenticity of good journalism into question), discredits marine archaelogy and other science (showing bad and inauthentic methods and poor documentation of the wreck site) and discredits art curation and conservation as nothing more than a carnival of hucksters and showboaters. This rates scarcely better than PT Barnum's freakshows and is worthy of a place in the Hall of Hoaxes, between Piltdown Man and the Cardiff Giant.
