Time has passed, I know. But no longer than the 30 years that this woman, Diana Nyad was out of her element, after not being able to accomplish one last feat with which she wanted to immortalise her story as a record-breaking open water swimmer.
It's been a while, and a long while, since I said I would bring my impressions of this film. I won't look back that far, but I ‘vaguely’ remember that I dared to draw a scene from it. Hive is a world of challenges too.
Let's leave that matter unimportant and continue with what we are dealing with here, which I assure you is of great significance. It's one of those films that makes you question ‘things’. So I really encourage you to watch, if you haven't already, this Netflix production from 2023 that lasts 2 hours. I'm telling you, if you're an easy tear jerker like me, it will get a few tears out of you and I think when the end credits roll you're going to have a lot of ideas in your mind to process, some ‘understanding’ as I alerted you from the title of this post.
I will not dwell on the performances for the moment. Here you have the technical specifications of the film., which was directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. I've looked at their filmography and I don't really know them... although I've seen some interesting titles there related to wildlife and photography. I'm very detached from cinema, really.
The performances are not great in my humble opinion; however, the story, in the simple way it is told and intertwined with the real images of that moment (yes, it is a real story), provide an important dramatic charge, and without falling into the pure documentary genre, there is an attractive touch that contributes a lot to the objective of this film, or at least what I think was intended with it: to pay homage to a great woman and to inspire us all through her experience, determination and courage.
Diana Nyad is a living legend, in fact, she was in Cuba last year for the Havana International Film Festival. And I missed her. I heard about it from someone I follow on Instagram who posted her picture sitting in one of our cinemas - how cool, right! My paparazzi days (a story that will one day make it to Hive) have not been forgotten, but I would really need training and something else to get back in shape.
In this article (in Spanish) Diana Nyad is very happy to be in Cuba, 11 years after achieving her feat, and explains that she was invited to participate in the presentation of her autobiographical film. 😃
And speaking of getting back in shape... what do you think happened to make her decide 30 years later to try again what was not humanly thought possible? At the age of 28, that woman, whose Greek surname means ‘water nymph’, had already achieved a number of triumphs. There's mention, of course, of her world record swim from Capri to Naples in Italy, the Lake Ontario crossing, the swim around the island of Manhattan, how she broke the record of swimming 89 miles from the Bahamas to Florida in 27 hours and 38 minutes... All this is easy to say, isn't it?
Well, time is relative, but it doesn't stop. When she reached her 60th birthday, she was going through, it seems, some kind of existential crisis, let's say... or she simply awoke from the depths of her soul that desire that she was unable to fulfil and somehow it was like a string that was tightening in her life.
She had been a sports journalist since leaving her career as a long-distance swimmer, she had an active social life, friends... the film doesn't really explore these issues much, except in a few dialogues that add a little spice and humour to the plot. It's about two friends who love each other very much and are also very similar... there is passion and competitiveness in them. Jodie Foster, who plays Bonnie, even suggests to her that to alleviate this crisis she should go on a few romantic dates or meet people, which Annette Benning, in the role of Nyad, refuses to do.
These screenshots I made for you for the spoiler thingy hahaha....
I always like to look at the details of things. For example, Nyad's friend was a racquetball player. 👀
A book of poetry, which had been owned by her mother, makes Diana Nyad caress the possibility of achieving the unthinkable, which I told you was not humanly possible, but you will have to see the film to know at what point and why this is said to a woman who is determined to push her body and mind to the limit in order to achieve her dream, which did not include a cage to protect against... guess what!
‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?,’ wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Mary Oliver. It's a question we've all asked ourselves, almost dare I say it, and one that prompts the twist in the daily story of these two women. From there on we've been put into perspective as we watch Nyad overcome each of her trials... I'd tell you all about it, really. Have I? Nah... 🤣
By the way, read the whole poem:
Who made the world?Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver - Source
(More spoilers!)
I like Nyad's phrases, I like the friendship with Bonnie, I like the beauty of those moments when difficulties bring people together and I also like the three things Diana says at the end when she steps on the Florida sand.
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