J Paul Johnson
Most sports docs take us behind the scenes of what is already familiar—perhaps the finals of Wimbledon or the US Open, the Tour de France, the NBA Finals or the World Series—to give audiences a taste of what they don’t already know. They take, largely for granted, that their audience is well acquainted with their subject’s celebrated accomplishments. The new documentary Freediver, debuting on digital December 7, has an entirely different challenge: its sport is lesser known and rarely seen, even if it is as physically and mentally arduous as any. No less ambitious is its goal: to connect its subject’s pursuit of a spate of world records to the very meaning of life.
Freediver is based on the sport of freediving’s unparalleled champion, Alexey Molchanov, who in 2023 attempted to set five world records in under four months. Director Michael John Warren and a handful of film crews followed Molchanov on his quest around the world as the freediver attempted not only to reclaim his own glory in the wake of his exile from Russia but also as he grieved the loss of his mother, the freediving pioneer Natalia Molchanova. Molchanov’s quest takes him to the edges of the earth—and his own sanity—as he pursues what seems nearly impossible.
Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine profoundly impacted the world of sport, and freediving was no exception. In Molchanov’s case, as a Russian athlete he was at first banned from international competition and forced to watch from the sidelines as other athletes broke his world records. When allowed back into the sport—competing only under a neutral flag—Molchanov sets himself the almost-unimaginable goal of retaking all of his records in all the sports sub-disciplines in a single season.
The documentary is based in part on a GQ article from 2021, “Secrets of the World’s Greatest Freediver,” written before Molchanov’s quest but nonetheless laying the groundwork for much of the film’s thematic explorations. The pursuit of each of the five records lends the film its narrative structure, while tangents explore Molchanov’s training, his mother’s legacy, and the sport’s unique demands. As one might imagine, especially comparing the film to the prose article that inspired it, charting Molchanov’s quest on film brings with it several unique challenges.
The first of those is documenting the freedives themselves. Molchanov, in each attempt, dives straight down from the ocean’s surface as far as 156 meters—for reference, about 1.5 times the height of The Statue of Liberty—unaided. Doing so requires near-superhuman lung capacity, physical technique, and mental fortitude—and, it seems, practically a preternatural calm. Safety divers follow, to a distance, ready to assist if necessary, as at times a diver might lose consciousness even upon their return ascent. But they do not and could not follow to the depths of the competitors themselves.
That Warren and his crews could find ways to follow and record Molchanov’s attempts from various underwater perspectives, and to do so both safely and in aesthetically satisfying ways, is itself remarkable. So too of course are Molchanov’s efforts and tireless dedication; he’s a two-decade veteran of the sport at 37, an age at which athletes in most other sports are well into retirement. There are more than a few moments in Freediver that convey cinematically the wondrous majesty of a deep sea few humans will ever witness.
There is also one moment of profound duress and crisis. It’s something of a truism that in great verité documentary, for something awful to happen to the film’s subject makes for something of a gift to the narrative. After all, drama is born of conflict. And Warren and crew are there to chart with breathtaking, horrifying immediacy a moment when something indeed goes wrong on one of Molchanov’s record-attempting dives. And as profoundly disturbing a sequence as that is to watch, it is also, ironically, that moment that most makes Freediver worth watching.
Elsewhere, the documentary, though it is exceedingly well-crafted, faces its own challenges. As incredible as freediving can be to witness and as enrapturing as the film’s cinematography can be, the sport itself has something of a numbing consistency, where nearly every attempt (unless something goes wrong) looks pretty much exactly like every other attempt, at least to non-expert eyes. The techniques used to present archival content work perfectly well; some siren-of-the-deep breathy female voice-over far less so; and the meditative-yogaesque soundtrack is so incessant one might be forgiven for wishing for a way to mute it.
As a freediver Molchanov is one of sport’s greatest champions. As a documentary subject—and documentaries depend on the persona of their subjects—he is, even for the challenges and losses he has faced, preternaturally placid and almost devoid of affect, at least on camera. In other words, he is no Ilie Nastase, Reggie Jackson, or John McEnroe, not the kind of overt or outward personality that can by itself drive a documentary’s motor. Part of what makes him great as an athlete—his abject calm—is what also makes him a little less interesting as an interviewee on camera.
None of that is to criticize the man or the film but only to chart out what challenges the making of Freediver presents. With the task of presenting a little-known sport, a champion with unparalleled resolve but little affect, and doing so at unsafe depths, there’s nothing easy about Freediver. It may not, as it aspires to, uncover the very meaning of life, but it’s nonetheless an intriguing look at an incredible undertaking and, at one specific moment in particular, an illustration of just how much is at risk in any competitive freedive.
