Deeper is a hell of an achievement, with a very special group of men at its heart
Graeme Tuckett is a film and television reviewer for The Post and Sunday Star-Times.
REVIEW: Deeper is the story of how a group of fairly remarkable blokes worked together to attempt a feat of cave-diving that had never been tried before.
But at another, err, deeper level, this film is a pretty insightful and very likeable portrait of some unlikely men at their absolute best, as they selflessly help each other to achieve a couple of goals that none of them could have reached alone.
In 2023, Dr Richard - “Harry“ - Harris and a group of his friends and colleagues assembled in a remote valley in New Zealand's Kahurangi National Park, in the Tasman region of Te Wai Pounamu. There is a spot in that valley known as the Pearse Resurgence, where the ice cold springs that will become the Pearse River emerge from a cave beneath the water's surface.
Harris, Craig Challen, Rick Stanton, Dave Apperley and their crew of "wet mules" had dived the Resurgence before, and reached depths well in excess of 100 metres. But on this expedition they planned to go below 200 metres, and to see parts of the cave that have never been explored before.
At those depths, any mistake or the smallest equipment failure will almost certainly prove fatal. But Harris is determined to use the dive to test out a newly built piece of kit that will allow him to switch between compressed air and a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen. As one of Harris's colleagues says, "it either works or it doesn't". But if it doesn't, Harris will be dead.
Director Jennifer Peedom and her crew strap cameras to the divers' equipment and helmets, and with the grainy and underlit footage they capture, the film makers do an admirable job of piecing together the progress the divers are making. But, as we watch the film, we begin to realise that there is another story unfolding in parallel to the more obvious heroics under the surface.
Back in 2018, Harris and Challen were a key part of the team that rescued 12 Thai high-school football players and their coach from a flooded cave. The rescue unfolded over several days, with TV and news crews from all over the world gathered at the site. Harris is an anaesthetist by training. He was the one who made and administered the injections that would send each of the boys into unconsciousness, and yet able to breathe through a scuba mask for the five hours it would take to bring each one of them out.
When the rescue succeeded, Harris and Challen became very famous, especially at home in Australia. But, the fame and attention didn't always sit well with Harris. And the Pearse Resurgence expedition is, perhaps, also Harris' attempt to reclaim some equilibrium in a life that has been turned upside down.
Peedom handles this other, quieter part of the story-telling exceptionally well. In 2015, Peedom's film Sherpa began as an account of one climbing season on Everest. But when a disaster struck, it became a portrait and a celebration of the quiet, misunderstood men and women of the local Sherpa communities who make every climb possible.
Peedom does something similar here. Deeper is a great account of an adventure. But it is also a study of a group of remarkable men and their families. You wouldn't look twice at Harris, or any of the team, if you saw them in the street. But Peedom shows us these quiet, reserved and self-effacing blokes at their absolute best. Quietly communicating and getting on with doing something that no one else has ever achieved, but also not wanting anyone to make a fuss about it.
Deeper is a smart and beautifully observed film. I reckon you'll like it a lot.
Deeper is on Netflix. Sherpa (2015) is on DocPlay, Apple+ and Prime.
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