Why? This one-word question comes up more than once in “Freediver,” director Michael John Warren’s remarkable documentary about Alexei Molchanov, a champion in a sport that audiences may not have thought much about but won’t soon forget.
Based on an article by Daniel Reilly published in GQ in 2021, the film begins with a largely verbatim explanatory passage of text: “The goal of competitive freediving is simple: get as deep as possible in one breath and then return to the surface without blacking out or dying.” Takeaway The wider humanitarian implications of Molchanov’s breathtaking dives, as well as some of the collective friendliness of his fellow divers, are captured in the documentary’s ascension Molchanov to the depth.
Alexei’s mother, Natalia Molchanova, comes out strong — not only in her son’s backstory but also in the sport itself. A champion swimmer, she and Alexei’s father, Oleg, separated when Alexei was a teenager. After their divorce, Natalia did not find herself until she discovered freediving in her 40s. The film includes excerpts from poems she wrote after this “rebirth,” as one of her relatives considered them.
It was a discovery she shared with her son as she began to excel at it. She was a record holder long before Alexei became one. Warren uses the story of the bond between mother and son in the way divers orient themselves to the main bottom line as they dive deeper and deeper.
The home video shows Natalia smiling widely whether she’s on the ground or in her wetsuit. In 2015, she disappeared while on a fairly routine diving trip off the coast of Spain. (Natalia plays an important, if posthumous, role in last year’s documentary “The Deepest Breath,” about freediver Alessia Zecchini.) “Freediver” is haunted by Natalia, making it tender and psychologically absorbing. The film is dedicated to her.
As for the younger Molchanov’s early years, the film touches on both the unsurprising (he was an exceptional swimmer even as a toddler) and the charming: before the flamboyant nickname “The Machine,” he was called a “retriever,” because he was like a puppy. About his mother and the older divers.
Warren began filming in 2022, the year Alexei was banned from participating in the popular sports competition called Vertical Blue due to Russia’s war on Ukraine. Sitting in Moscow with his wife Elena Sokolova and infant son, Alexei watched as other divers claimed his world records.
Much of the documentary’s narrative tension comes from Molchanov’s attempts in 2023 (he was able to compete under a neutral flag) to regain those records and more by competing in five freediving categories. The 36-year-old sits down for a session explaining the rules of each event – variable weight, monofin, twin-fin freediving and, most treacherously, no fins – his eyes are bright, his enthusiasm gently engaging. It’s easy to see why he’s successfully launched several self-titled diving schools, and has plans for more.
Molchanov’s quest takes viewers to some of the most frequented but remote locations of an eclectic group of competitive freedivers, their families, and fans of the sport: the Bahamas, Nice, the Caribbean island of Bonaire, and Honduras. In the Philippines, an approaching typhoon shortens the time it has to achieve one of its goals. His rushing attempt underscores how dedicated (or is he reckless?) he is.
The combination of talking heads and underwater shots (cinematography by Jeff Lewis Peterman) as well as the occasionally touted view of the potential for disaster or triumph introduce the familiar beats of the genre. However, “Freediver” has many pithy flourishes.
Scenes from the natural world provide a meditative respite from competitive fervor, exploring what Alexey is also concerned with: ocean health. Warren and editor Mohamed Almanasterly craft fragmented visions and hallucinations that evoke the distorted awareness that divers may experience when they are on the verge of unconsciousness or when in a trance-like calm.
Warren even finds something of an enemy for his hero: William Troubridge. The finless freediving record holder and founder of the Vertical Blue invitational event was instrumental in banning Molchanov from competing in 2022. And he had his reasons. On camera, Adam Skolnick, author of “One Breath: Freediving, Death, and the Quest to Break Human Limits,” points out Trowbridge’s apparent conflict of interest: He had held the record for diving without fins for seven years when Alexie went after him. .
But in a controversy that threatens to pull the viewer out of Alexie’s world, the sportswriter trivializes the legitimate moral conflict over sports, nationalism, and war. His comments about the impotence of the gesture irritate viewers who may already have established an uneasy relationship between Alexei — moving freely around the world, returning home to his wife and child in Moscow — and another Alexei who also starred in a documentary, but who appears to have lived in a very different Russia. . It’s a moment that raises complex feelings about the film’s closed world, and perhaps extreme sports in general. However, this does not spoil the more lasting impression that the story of Alexei and Natalia leaves.
“Freediver” is now streaming on Prime Video.