Thirteen Lives review: A miraculous film about a miraculous story

The rescue of the Thai team of footballers is no little-known tale. A well-documented and televised story, the incredible rescue of the Wild Boars from a cave in Thailand has been covered, illustrated and presented in a variety of ways. The team has even been on Ellen (Ellen Degeneres’ chat show) confirming a certain exotic quality in the international media space. It’s easy to forget in the aftermath of such media attention that the rescue itself was an ordeal of haunting proportions. And though it has been storied and studied extensively Director Ron Howard, through Amazon Prime Video’s _Thirteen Lives_ brings to life a fictional, matter-of-act account of the improbable rescue that feels every bit as claustrophobic, and is thankfully devoid of imposing white sentiment. Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell play British divers Rick Stanton and John Volanthen, who are two among the many international volunteers who descend upon the infamous cave site. Though it’s impossible to determine at first, both Britons eventually swim to the end of a nearly 2- mile swim parsing through narrow crevices and tunnels of rock to reach where the boys had somehow survived for almost a week. The problem though isn’t in finding them alive but in the ways they can or cannot be rescued. “If you try to rescue them what you will bring out are dead bodies”, Rick tells the mayor after a moment of hesitant jubilation among volunteers. Reluctantly though, Rick suggests a plan, to sedate the boys so they don’t panic during the swim out. It’s a task only few swimmers are qualified for in the world and Rick calls upon one of them, in Harris, played by Joel Edgerton. The details of the Thai cave rescue are all part of the international public record but in Director’s Ron Howard’s hands it feels as authentic as happening in real time. The key is the understated direction and the inspired control over the dramatics. Farrell and Mortensen disappear into their roles as ageing, objective men who though they know better than most, don’t behave like it. It’s miraculous that a film about white men swimming to save brown children manages to veer towards collective heroism rather than the individual. There is a whole arc of engineers directing water out of the cave into paddy fields to buy the divers more time that though it could have been merged better does justice to a massive collective effort. Many volunteers pitched up on the location to cook food, wash clothes, or be of any use. The film also addresses the political dilemma of some of team’s players (the coach included) being stateless - part of a minority in Thailand.   Howard manages to find balance between the participation of the native and the imported heroism of the outsider. There are moving scenes of the locals chaotically gathering news from sources, huddling over small details and staring each other in the eye with uncertain conviction. More than anything else though, it’s the matter-of-fact treatment of the film, sans the melodrama that most Hollywood films come loaded with that proves be stunningly effective. The net result is a breathless, edge-of-the-seat experience that feels as asphyxiating as the diving on the screen. It’s a feat then that the working parts of a story that is now known to most people, are fitted together with the kind precision and creative control that not a breath feels out of line.   Films set underwater suffer from a certain kinetic obscurity. Scenes in which divers come up for a breath of fresh air are scenes where you as an audience tend to breath and pay attention to the narrative rather than the outcomes. Howard’s film carefully balances the sequences of trauma-inducing narrow escapes inside haunting spaces with scenes of people exchanging dialogue that feels more lived-in than superficially cinematic. Mid-way through the film, a Thai swimmer gets entangled beneath a stalactite channel inside the cave and drowns to death. It’s a tricky scene to frame inside a film trying to shun dramatism for a leaner, unfussy design but Howard’s direction manages to sway clear of the melodrama that would inevitably overburden a story’s methods and mechanics. Instead, he ratchets emotion by the sheer scale of the challenge, exemplified by Mortensen’s emotionless countenance in what is a gloriously detached role from the acting stalwart. Thirteen Lives is miraculous in many ways, not the least bit for the story it intends to portray. This is a rescue that lasted more than three weeks, required the wilful participation of both locals and foreign volunteers and looks and feels near impossible at the end of it. Two Thai divers lost their lives and even though these are facts that are supposed to diminish the story’s capacity to attract your attention, Howard’s assured and melodrama-less direction ensures that Thirteen Lives squeezes every moment into tense, satisfying transitions of narrative gold. The kind that you don’t have to rub to see the spark, but the kind that glows and simmers with an unflinching aura, unignorably of its own making. Thirteen Lives is now showing on Amazon Prime video

The author writes on art and culture, cinema, books, and everything in between. Views expressed are personal. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram