Director Laura McGann examines the perils of free diving in this riveting examination of champion Alessia Zecchini and safety diver Stephen Keenan.
Chuck says:
I have a friend who contends that baseball, football, basketball, and other activities of this sort are sports, while golf and bowling and their ilk are games. How he would classify free diving, I have no idea. I was ignorant of this death-wish event until watching Laura McGann’s riveting new documentary “The Deepest Breath,” a fascinating, harrowing look at a group of rare athletes who push themselves to the limit every time they go into the water. The opening sequence, using footage taken during an actual competition, immediately drives home the dangers of this sport, as we witness one of the competitors crawls downwards from the lighted surface of the ocean to its dark cold depths, clinging to a single lifeline that will guide them back. Presented in real time, the life and death nature of this sport is readily apparent, and immediately sets the tone of the film.
The notion of fate runs throughout the movie, McGann constructing this not as an examination of a niche sport, but rather a dual character study. Alessia Zecchini is a young lady who early on knows that she wants to not simply be a free diver, but the best one in the world. With the help of her supportive parents, she begins to take lessons at the age of thirteen and soon proves herself to be a prodigy. Setting records at the age of fourteen, she must contend with a ruling from the sports’ governing board that raises the age of competition to eighteen. This only inspires her more and when she finally competes professionally, she’s an immediate sensation.
While Zecchini is on her path to being a world-class competitor, Stephen Keenan is seeking some sort of purpose in his life. Bitter over his parents’ divorce and his mother dying young from cancer, he sets out to travel the world with little in the way of an agenda. He explores the Congo for years, returns to home in Ireland for a respite before setting out once more, taking a circuitous route that leads him to Dahab, Egypt. There he becomes a scuba instructor and eventually begins to dabble in free diving as well. A scare that nearly results in his death leads him to become a safety diver and when he saves the world champion from drowning, his reputation in this insular community skyrockets.
What’s so arresting about the film is the way McGann uses the vast amount of footage she has at her disposal. Switching back and forth between Zecchini and Keenan’s stories, we see each travel on their respective paths via video taken at her diving events and his travelogue video diaries as well scenes from other familial sources. The result is a fascinating dual narrative that, as both strands develop, a sense that they were destined to meet hardly seems manufactured but preordained.
Which serves to make the third act even more poignant. As Zecchini struggles to set a new world record, Keenan takes her under his wing to guide her. The bond they form goes far beyond that of pupil and teacher, each recognizing in the other a kindred spirit. They see in each other a drive that’s rare and all consuming and in fostering that in one another, it leads to both triumph and tragedy.
Is there a lesson to be had here? I’m not sure, though I couldn’t help wondering if the gods were punishing Zecchini and Keenan having the temerity to have more than one great passion in their lives. If so, the courage displayed at the end of “Breath” proves all the more poignant.
3 1/2 Stars
