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There are few things that can bring the entire world together like a rescue and the hope that it brings for a return to normalcy. There are few things more potentially callous than the media swarming on a story that has the potential to end in tragedy. “The Rescue,” the latest documentary from Academy Award-winning filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, explores the conflict between optimism and opportunism in the face of adversity. When it comes to “The Rescue,” the focus is on the Tham Luang Nang Non cave rescue in Thailand, which garnered international attention during the months of June and July 2018—and has since been so seized upon by various studios, streaming services, and production companies that it is difficult for a documentary like this to find its footing.
For much of the summer of 2018, it was impossible to avoid the constant updates on the story of 12 Thai tween and teen soccer players and one of their adult coaches, who were trapped in the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system due to flooding. The story was told minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day. News crews from around the world set up camp while the Thai military worked with a team of international divers to figure out how to get into the cave system and locate the boys. (You may recall that Elon Musk interjected himself into the situation in a typically clumsy manner.) After the boys were saved, there was a bidding war for the rights to use their images. The story of the boys was eventually licensed to Netflix, while the story of the divers was licensed to National Geographic Documentary Films, and it is this story that is the focus of “The Rescue.”
It is theoretically an exciting position from which to approach this story, because it is told from the point of view of divers. These individuals traveled to Thailand on their own dime from all over the world to volunteer in a high-stress environment—a life-and-death situation, to put it mildly—while contending with a slew of cultural and language barriers. However, Vasarhelyi and Chin’s approach to “The Rescue” is hampered from the start by the fact that they are working backward. With “The Rescue,” the duo is less involved from the beginning than they were with their previous documentaries “Meru” and “Free Solo,” in which they were actively involved from the beginning and guided the projects forward with their own perspectives, “The Rescue” is more of a collect-and-shape project. Vasarhelyi and Chin had 87 hours of footage shot by others to work with, as well as a number of interviews conducted over Zoom, and as a result, “The Rescue” lacks a sense of urgency that would have been appropriate for the situation.
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“The Rescue,” on the other hand, gets off to a promising start with little preamble. A barely organized chaos prevails outside the Mae Sai cave, where monsoon flooding has trapped members of the local Wild Boars youth football team, who have been stranded since early this month. The situation is chaotic, with military members, divers, and volunteers all scrambling to figure out operational logistics (such as how to keep the power on and keep the water out), while relatives weep and pray and reporters wait. As soon as we’ve arrived at our destination, the documentary takes over, describing the cave’s geology (limestone holds water), its ten-kilometer-long layout (which includes numerous twists and turns), and the mythology that has surrounded it (the goddess Nang Non, for whom the cave system is named). “The Rescue” then turns its attention to the divers from the United Kingdom and Australia, who had traveled to Thailand at the request of British expat and diver Vern Unsworth, who lives in the country and recognized a need for more experienced assistance among the first responders. It was necessary to enlist outside assistance because the Thai military had never carried out an operation of this nature before. They are dealing with six inches of rain per hour during the monsoon season, and so outside assistance was required.
The Rescue Quiz
Cave diving is a small community, and many of the men in it have similar stories to tell about how other people treat their hobby, which involves crawling through spaces barely wider than a human body and exploring the unknown. Cave diving is a dangerous sport, and many of the men in it have died as a result of their efforts. They bring their homemade equipment, a certain amount of social awkwardness (“All of us are not team players,” admits diver Rick Stanton), and a mixture of optimism and trepidation with them to Thailand for the dive. And with each passing day, their fear that their presence will be detrimental rather than beneficial grows. ‘The Rescue’ makes effective use of interviews with these men as well as video footage they shot while in Thailand, which includes their first sighting of the lost boys in the cave. Those tidbits of new information are legitimately moving, and the film’s final act, in which the divers stage their final rescue attempts, serves as the perfect complement. (The reconstructions, which were filmed at Pinewood Studios, are seamlessly integrated with the GoPro footage taken by the divers.) It’s impressive how “The Rescue” manages to create incredible tension even when the majority of those watching the documentary are already aware of the outcome, and those are the moments when Vasarhelyi and Chin’s ability to precisely communicate a potentially life-threatening situation is at its best.
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According to interviews and marketing for “The Rescue,” the film is intended for families of all ages, and that is a reasonable recommendation; viewers who are the same age as the stranded teammates may be particularly engrossed in the story. It would be impossible to not be moved by this story on an emotional level, and “The Rescue” succeeds in this regard. Because Vasarhelyi and Chin were unable to speak with the boys or their families, and because the documentary’s pacing begins slowly, “The Rescue” comes across as half a story, told fairly well, but still half a story, to me.
About the quiz
“The Rescue” is currently playing in a limited number of theaters and will be released nationwide on October 15.Also, you must try to play this The Rescue quiz.
For more personality quizzes check this: In The Earth Quiz.
