Sunday, September 3, 2023

Deepest Breath (2023)


THE DEEPEST BREATH profiles Alessia Zecchini, an Italian free diver and Stephen Keenan who acted as her safety diver. It is a bitter sweet film of people who loved their sport and each other.

Free diving is an incredibly dangerous sport. It involved attempting to dive down as far as possible without oxygen and then swim back up.  It’s a descent into darkness since divers go so deep light really doesn’t penetrate. It is also dangerous because the only air is what you have in your lungs. It’s deadly even for the best swimmers, who frequently blackout as they near the completion of a dive because their brains turn off to save oxygen.

The film tells the stories of Zecchini and Keenan as they learned to dive and eventually met when their paths crossed when Keenan saved Zecchini from drowning. What happens after that makes up a good chunk of the film.

This is a low key and very tense tale. It’s one that will keep you on the edge of your seat as you wait to see how it goes. While you can look to see what happens, its much better to belt in and take the ride. It’s beautifully made tale that is kind of like being inside someone else’s memory.

I was hypnotized, so on a night when I wasn’t going to watch anything and get some home stuff done I ended up watching it all in one go.

This is a great film you need to see- preferably as big as you can so you can fall into the images.

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