Even if you do not typically enjoy documentaries, odds are you will find this one fascinating. Not only does it have a well-mapped out plot that while easy to follow, contains its interesting detours; it also has a very strong emotional resonance, and not one that relies on a simple specific tone. Instead the emotions here are as profound and turbulent as the seas featured.
That being said, if you know nothing of Donald Crowhurst and the 1968 single-handers boat race around the world...as was the case for me...please stop reading, and rent/view this film.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
My friend Brian recommended this at the same time that my Aunt had sent me a clipping linking this film with Antonioni's work In 2007, I was mesmerized by several of Antonioni's films, still am! To connect this film to Antonioni, I think is a bit of a stretch, the character most likely to be seen in one of Michaelangelo's movies is Francoise Moitessier de Cazalet. It's funny on the main IMDb page, he isn't even listed as playing "Himself" which is probably a function of his lengthy name, as opposed to his self realization/renunciation. Since Moitessier sails right out of the race, that could be considered is a bit like Anna in L'Avventura. Quite a major minor character.
While there are many things to love about this film: the actual footage from the time, the stoic best friend, the sheer power of the Roaring Forties, I walked away with a simple connection. A man, truly at sea. There have been times in my life where I wonder how I got to such a point, caught between dreams and reality, feeling like a stowaway in my own skin. It may be that I'm reading too much into this documentary, and that in turn the directors read too much into Crowhurst, but I found that sense as spell-binding as the other secrets kept in this film.
On the odd chance that Crowhurst's wife (who seemed a remarkable study in restraint with understandably conflicted overtones) and his children (so young in the found footage, and still young at this late date in the sense of their pain and pride for their father), I am certain the comments here and the film itself fail to catch the man that your father was. In his death however, he has given the world a glimpse of something like a lost myth, he is a pre-GPS Odysseus. Never finding his body adds to the air of frail immortality, if not the stature of a cosmic being of which he had writ.
This film sticks with you after the viewing, as if you expect another twist to emerge from the deep waters. Or at the very least, you hope for the Moitessier sequel.
Thurston Hunger 8/10
That being said, if you know nothing of Donald Crowhurst and the 1968 single-handers boat race around the world...as was the case for me...please stop reading, and rent/view this film.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
My friend Brian recommended this at the same time that my Aunt had sent me a clipping linking this film with Antonioni's work In 2007, I was mesmerized by several of Antonioni's films, still am! To connect this film to Antonioni, I think is a bit of a stretch, the character most likely to be seen in one of Michaelangelo's movies is Francoise Moitessier de Cazalet. It's funny on the main IMDb page, he isn't even listed as playing "Himself" which is probably a function of his lengthy name, as opposed to his self realization/renunciation. Since Moitessier sails right out of the race, that could be considered is a bit like Anna in L'Avventura. Quite a major minor character.
While there are many things to love about this film: the actual footage from the time, the stoic best friend, the sheer power of the Roaring Forties, I walked away with a simple connection. A man, truly at sea. There have been times in my life where I wonder how I got to such a point, caught between dreams and reality, feeling like a stowaway in my own skin. It may be that I'm reading too much into this documentary, and that in turn the directors read too much into Crowhurst, but I found that sense as spell-binding as the other secrets kept in this film.
On the odd chance that Crowhurst's wife (who seemed a remarkable study in restraint with understandably conflicted overtones) and his children (so young in the found footage, and still young at this late date in the sense of their pain and pride for their father), I am certain the comments here and the film itself fail to catch the man that your father was. In his death however, he has given the world a glimpse of something like a lost myth, he is a pre-GPS Odysseus. Never finding his body adds to the air of frail immortality, if not the stature of a cosmic being of which he had writ.
This film sticks with you after the viewing, as if you expect another twist to emerge from the deep waters. Or at the very least, you hope for the Moitessier sequel.
Thurston Hunger 8/10