The Deepest Breath: A tense, engrossing documentary about the terrifying sport of freediving

The Irish director Laura McGann made a splash in the trade papers when, shortly before premiering at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, her engrossing documentary on the terrifying business of freediving sold to Netflix. It is not hard to see what attracted the streaming service. From Touching the Void, back in 2003, to the more recent Free Solo, extreme sports have proved an irresistible draw to the habitually sedentary film enthusiast.

No person so dedicated to recreational danger can fail to be of interest. There is inherent, deathly tension in revisiting such adventures. And there is invariably human tragedy. McGann and her team structure their film in such a way as to hint – but not quite confirm – that a calamity is coming in the later stages. There is exhilaration here, but there is also a sense of foreboding throughout.

The Deepest Breath, which is receiving a limited theatrical run before landing on the streamer next week, concerns itself with two legends of the sport. Alessia Zecchini, an Italian, is the current record holder, with a dive of 113m. Stephen Keenan, a Dubliner, began as amateur explorer, became a freediver and eventually ended up as a safety diver (an activity that carries its own risks). The two eventually link up romantically before Zecchini attempts her world record and plans a dangerous descent to a collapsed cave.

Along the way, the basics of the sport are laid out with great clarity. Participants take the deepest of breaths and swim vertically down a rope suspended in open water. They grab one of several detachable markers positioned at regular points in the descent and then make their way back to the surface. If, as often happens, they require assistance in the later stages, then the dive is invalid and they are proffered a red card.

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The sport is savage on body and brain. We see a number of extraordinarily fit people being brought to after blacking out in the later stages. Humans exist on a spectrum between those who find this tempting and those who feel nauseous just watching it on film.

An opening message explains that “this film uses footage from actual events” but that “in some scenes additional archive material and reconstructions have been added”. McGann is, of course, blessed in that she is making a film set at a time and in an environment where everybody films everything. We see a young Keenan as he sets out to encounter gorillas in central Africa. We see Zecchini taking early steps towards later dominance.

[ ‘Freediving was like nothing I’d ever seen’: breathtaking Irish film about a deeply dangerous sport garners early awards buzz ]

Like all the best sports films, The Deepest Breath broadens its gaze to a wider cast of supporting combatants. The Japanese freediver Hankao Hirose emerges as something like Brad Davis’s character in Chariots of Fire – the fearsome competitor who greatly respects her rival. In a later scene, where a documentary on more ancient events might have read us letters, the screen is taken up with retrieved text messages.

Whereas the makers of the Oscar-winning Free Solo, a climbing doc, had crisp mountain air to work with, The Deepest Breath has much to do with gloom and depth. The film is, however, skilfully edited to leave us in no doubt as to what threat is looming over Keenan or Zecchini. The closing stage, in particular, layers on the anxiety.

For all that, The Deepest Breath can’t quite explain what attracts people to recreational torture. Less perilous activities promise similar levels of glory and community feeling. The copious talking heads fail to open up the intellectual wiring required to derive pleasure from an activity that invites submarine asphyxiation. What we do get is lucid explanation of the sport’s mechanics and satisfactory celebration of two impressively unstoppable personalities. A smart buy for the streamer.

In cinemas from Friday, July 14th. Streams on Netflix from July 19th