The Deep

March 1984, Iceland. A fishing boat with five aboard capsizes off Heimaey. One of the crew, Gulli, starts swimming toward shore in the dark, miles out. The water is five degrees, the air is minus three. Six hours later he reaches land, then walks three more hours barefoot across sharp lava to find help. The film refuses to manufacture heroism. The more Gulli tells the story, the more it becomes about his inability to explain his own survival. Doctors examine him in hospital, newspapers write him up as a miracle, and he cannot belong to the attention. The centre of gravity is not the rescue but the weight of being the one left. Baltasar Kormakur directed and wrote the screenplay with Jon Atli Jonasson. Olafur Darri Olafsson plays Gulli. The real man is Gudlaugur Fridthorsson. His swim is still remembered in Iceland and became a subject of scientific curiosity, with examinations of his body fat widely reported at the time. The sea sequences are the hardest part of the production, and the cold reads on screen without argument. Who it is for: anyone who likes unornamented survival stories drawn from real events. Who it is not for: anyone expecting thriller rhythm. The biggest sequence is over in the first half, and the rest moves in deliberate silence.