The Last of the Sea Women

The Last of the Sea Women is a gorgeous, moving documentary about the Haenyeo divers of South Korea's Jeju Island. Haenyeos dive in the ocean harvesting marine life using just their own breath. This documentary is beautiful, educational, and it left me wanting to learn more about the Haenyeos and their way of life. I also love the feeling of sisterhood you get from The Last of the Sea Women.

The documentary follows the Haenyeos, divers who work in a tradition handed down from mothers and grandmothers, as they tackle two main problems. One, the lack of younger Haenyeos to help with the physically hard and dangerous work. To collect seafood, they have to hold their breath underwater for up to 2 minutes and withstand water pressure, starting from a depth of 5 meters that is like a giant blue glass pushing them down. So, when emerging, a diver must break through this "blue glass" with all their strength, repeating this effort 100-300 times per dive. Also, today there are fewer women who risk becoming a Haenyeo. This documentary explores how their way of life may go extinct. Soon-E Kim (historian, Haenyeo tradition preservation committee) says being a Haenyeo is an extremely difficult occupation particularly because it's so dangerous, which is why there are so few now. Young Haenyeos have asked why they can't use an oxygen mask and yet that is not the way of the Haenyeo

The declining population of Haenyeo is concerning, but these days, no one wants to become a Haenyeo, perhaps understandably: If you try to collect too much in one dive, you'll "eat your breath" (die). And if you go too far out to sea, the waves become much stronger. When you dive down, you can get swept too far out by the current. Death is always around the corner for Haenyeo. Another main concern of the Haenyeo is water pollution due to rising global temperatures which have changed the ocean. Soon Deok Jang, a 72-year-old Haenyeo, says she never saw trash like styrofoam in the sea when she was young - now she sees truckloads.

Directors of photography, Iris Ng and Eunsoo Cho, created a film with powerful images and Justin Turkowski's underwater cinematography brings this story to life - it's stunning. Some archival film clips are included which demonstrate that the Haenyeo have been around for a long time. The Last of the Sea Women's encourages you to be invested in what they see as their calling. And they say that, in the old days, people looked down on Haenyeos, but now they are respected for who they are. The director and producer, Sue Kim delivers a compelling story with the help of the editors, Erin Casper, Yeong-A Kim, and Stacy Kim.

The Last of the Sea Women's purpose is to bring awareness to the Haenyeo and their plight. The film's message is that we need to take care of our planet, including our seas. The message is also to celebrate and learn about different cultures. Near the end of the documentary we see a Haenyeo festival. One of the Haenyeo, Hee Soon Lee explains that the festival is to teach people about their culture and their livelihood so that it is not forgotten.

I give The Last of the Sea Women 4.5 out of 5 stars and recommend it for ages 12 to 18, plus adults. You can watch The Last of the Sea Women on AppleTV+ beginning October 11, 2024. By Alma K., KIDS FIRST!

As with most people who take the time to watch this fascinating documentary, I knew nothing about "haenyeos" beforehand, but I learned a lot in just 90 minutes. Yes, it's challenging to summarize a tradition that began nearly 2,000 years ago in such a short timeframe, but I think the filmmakers did an excellent job. For me, the documentary provided a riveting introduction to a way of life that's on the verge of extinction due to a number of factors.

I especially enjoyed meeting the two younger haenyeos who not only share their "aunties'" passion for the profession, but may also be able to convince a younger generation to carry on the tradition.

Overall, The Last Of The Sea Women is an emotional, educational and beautifully filmed introduction to a group of amazing women whose story I truly enjoyed hearing.

I would highly recommend anyone wanting to learn more about this amazing tradition, read The Island of The Sea Women by Lisa See to get a more in depth understanding g of this culture. There is so much more to the Haenyou than this did orovides and a lot more history.

I watched this to learn more after finishing the book. And it was cool to see them in action, but too much fo us on what was happening in Japan. Although I understand and realize it's important, but it didn't teach me as much as I wanted to learn. Jeju island was deeply affected by the Korean War and the April 3 uprising that would have been more interesting since it directly affected these people.

I wanted to hear more about their training to become divers, their lives, etc. Instead it just had footage of harvesting and told a little about the divers. Then it switched to protesting Japan's release of nuclear wastewater into the ocean. Not at all what I was interested in. I read about the sea women in a book that was more moving and interesting than this movie. Skip the movie, read the books about the hanyeo women. You will learn more and be pulled into their lives in a much more emotional way.

The book also talked about the unique adaptations of these women's bodies. Scientists studied them and their cold resistance and other unique abilities.

It's fascinating to me that I learned for the first time about these strong, fearless, cheerful grandmothers called haenyeo, who in their 60s and 70s still snorkel a few meters and collect seafood to sell, and that's a tradition in South Korea. On the island of Jeji, a craft that has been handed down for generations, but is now dying out due to climate change, ocean pollution, and because the new generations do not want to do it. UNESCO protected this tradition in 2016.

However, although the film is visually wonderful, they failed to elaborate on some very important topics, such as when the government of Japan decided to release radioactive material into the ocean after Fukushima and when a haenyeo representative was invited to the UN to give a speech on what consequences this would have. . We don't really get a full epilogue to it, it's just scratched the surface. In essence, they did release that material into the ocean.