The Deep

March 1984, the Westman Islands off the south coast of Iceland. Gulli is a big, gentle fisherman, the kind of man who is liked by everyone and noticed by no one. One night his trawler snags its net and capsizes in minutes, so fast that no distress call is sent. One by one, his crewmates are lost in the black, freezing water. Gulli is left alone. The sea is five degrees, the air is below zero, and the shore is hours away. He starts to swim.

Baltasar Kormákur tells the true story of Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, who survived six hours in the sea and then crossed a lava field on foot to reach help, something doctors said should have been impossible. The sinking is terrifying and the swim is one of the most physical, intimate survival sequences I have seen: just a man, the dark, his breath, and the seagulls he talks to so he will not give up. Ólafur Darri Ólafsson is extraordinary as Gulli, a heavy, ordinary body that refuses to die, and a quiet soul who does not understand why he was the one who lived.

What lifts the film above a survival thriller is the second half: the scientists who want to study him like a seal, the village that turns him into a hero, and his guilt towards the friends who did not come back. It ends with images of the real Gulli, and it is very moving. It was Iceland's Oscar entry and made the shortlist. Simple, powerful and unforgettable. A must see.