The Rescue

As an avid diver myself, and someone who understands the incredible danger of cave diving, I followed every detail of the real-world events, including as many technical details as I could find. Even still, I learned a huge amount in this gripping, emotional, and well-crafted film. While I knew most of these broad strokes going in, The Rescue still had tons to offer. I didn’t know the personal stories of the rescue divers or their doubts and hesitations, nor about many of the struggles along the way – to convince the authorities that cave divers must be called in and to convince them that the dangerous sedation-extraction method would have to be used. It was great to get many more technical details about the ordeal too.

Chin and Vasarhelyi are expert storytellers. With so many possible angles, they found a streamlined story with several main characters and brought the emotion. The personal stories are fascinating, and the divers’ willingness to risk their lives for people they don’t know is heroic. Hearing their struggles in their words is incredibly powerful. Focusing on only a few comes at the expense of the fullest possible picture, but I think the narrative works so well that it was the right choice.

The visuals in The Rescue were great too. The filmmakers had access to dozens of hours of video, though in some cases when none existed, they recreated scenes with the people involved. That’s interesting enough to warrant a making-of documentary that explained the process of making this, pointing out which scenes were archival and which were recreated. Graphics showing the caves and interviews with many of the participants help fill out the story.

“…incredibly powerful…emotional.”

My problems are minor. I’d have liked even more technical details about the diving. Rebreathers, computer-controlled equipment that recycles your exhaled carbon dioxide into oxygen are sketchy as hell — a malfunction can (and often does) result in death, and this wasn’t even touched on. Were they used, or were most people using standard equipment? I read that low-frequency radios were used to communicate in the caves — regular radios don’t work, and low frequency has many challenges, notably very low bandwidth. This is fascinating to me, but it wasn’t mentioned. Still, I recognize I’m not a normal viewer in that sense.

My biggest qualm, again minor, is that the song that plays over the end credits is pretty cheesy. You don’t need music to tell you how to feel after the incredible storytelling has left you so emotional. But that’s a good problem to have.

See The Rescue as soon as you can. Sometimes reality is stranger, more unbelievable, and more inspirational than fiction.

The Rescue screened at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival and 2021 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.