La grotte

The world was captivated in 2018 when a youth soccer team got trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand. This Documentary by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (who won an Oscar for FREE SOLO) follows the rescue mission that was a collaboration of the Thai Naval Seal Team, divers from the U. S. Military, Australia and China (who, for some reason are given particularly short shrift) and other freelance divers from around the world. But, it was a squad of British civilians led by Rick Stanton and John Volanthen who took center stage because of their unique qualifications in such situations.

Vasarhelyi and Chin were somewhat hamstrung in making the Doc for several reasons including the fact that Netflix has locked up the movie rights to the soccer team and their families and couldn't be interviewed (old news footage is used to get some of their side of the story; recreations are also used where no footage is available). The filmmakers made the decision to focus on the rescue personnel - it really should be called "The Rescuers".

Even with these constraints - and the fact that everybody knows how it turns out - THE RESCUE manages to be genuinely suspenseful and moving.

"The Rescue" is about the rescuers and the peculiar mentality of the dedicated cave diver. It also provides an expert, 3D-graphics-enhanced procedural recreation of the whole painstaking, perilous extraction process. The mechanics of the operation boggle the mind, and in presenting them so elegantly. Just amazing that despite all the differences in nationalities, training (Thai Navy Seals) culture and languages, a group of non-professional cave divers succeeded in the rescue of the 12 boys (age 11 to 16) and their football coach. Astonishing story and better than most Christmas movies nowadays. This is an unbelievable story that must been seen! It is better than most of the movies hitting the theatre now.

An amazing story of perseverance and triumph, it hit me on a level I didn't expect - after all the ugliness we've seen in the world with Covid, it restored my faith in humanity. Just go see it.

I believe most of the scenes were re-enacted by the same crew that helped in the rescue but that doesn't diminish the greatness of this documentary, on the contrary, they enhanced it. If it weren't for the insistence, tenacity, courage of the British dives, this rescue would not have been successful. The computer-generated images provided us with an idea of how big, long and dangerous this cave is. By also showing the intimate life of these British divers and their reasons and passion for diving, the directors brought more realism, authenticity, humanity to the documentary.

One of the best documentaries of 2021.

What a well done documentary!!! It told the story so well with the original footage. Love it that they interviewed all the key persons in this mission so I got to know their point of view. The detailed explanation of the incident really got my full attention. What an amazing ending for such tragedy. All the people helping are truly heroes!