Film Thirteen Lives

jojojo

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Just watched it. I wasn't sure if I was going to watch it in a single hit or with my full attention (aka no wandering off into playing wordle or browsing the cafe etc) - but I did.

We know the ending (well unless you were living in a cave you do) and I knew the timeline, and the multiple strands - but still it pulled off that trick of being a piece of drama and a plausible perspective on a multi-faceted story.

A good story, well told - I'm sure there are inaccuracies, omissions and exaggerations etc but within the limitations that a couple of hours of movie-making impose, it gives a good sense of how thousands of people end up contributing in some way to the rescue.

And meanwhile of course the focus on the foreign divers and the ethical dilemmas kept my attention to the end.
 

lsd

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I would be interested as it was such a big event at the time.

It's difficult though looking at the cast and the director not to think of the words white saviour about this show
 

Donaldo

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I would be interested as it was such a big event at the time.

It's difficult though looking at the cast and the director not to think of the words white saviour about this show
They've managed to navigate that pretty well I thought.

Just a bit monotonous in the middle but stays just about tense enough to keep you in it. Good movie.
 

jojojo

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I would be interested as it was such a big event at the time.

It's difficult though looking at the cast and the director not to think of the words white saviour about this show
In a sense, that's inevitable. We all know this movie wouldn't have been made at all if the kids had been saved by the work of the Thai workers and Thai navy seals alone. We'd have noted the bravery, skill and endurance of skilled professionals and committed volunteers - but that's material for a one hour documentary on Discovery, not a couple of hours of movie on Amazon. We'd have forgotten it, the same way we forget the work of most professionals - especially professionals who are thousands of miles away.

As it is, the movie gives a real sense of the mass effort that had to go on around the work of the cave divers to make any of it possible, and of the community and the kind of backgrounds that the kids came from. It doesn't ignore its context or the mass effort.

That said, the focus of the movie is on the dive rescue and the guys who find the kids and do the final rescue swims to move the kids through the cave. But inevitably that's where the Drama (with a capital D for Hollywood) is - there's just so much time you can devote to micro-dams to re-route water flows, giant pumps, Navy seals not finding any trace of the kids, and the work of feeding stations for the volunteer workforce , before the audience needs to see progress on the kids.

Part of the drama plays out in the fact that the foreign divers are willing amateurs (albeit with very specific skills). They're not Navy Seals from a foreign navy or whatever, and that brings home how desperate the professional drivers (the Thai Seal team etc) and local administrators are feeling to listen to them at all.

Ultimately the drama focuses on the final rescue when the dive team know (and have told the Thai authorities) that they may be killing the kids as they try to save them that makes the story compelling.

The anaesthetist must have felt sick every time he knocked out a kid and dispatched him with an amateur diver, a supply of syringes to keep the kid unconscious and a vague hope that some of them would survive.

The divers must have felt utterly numb trying to keep the kids safe while simultaneously knowing that they might start with a live kid and yet end up dragging a dead kid through the cave for hours.

The focus is on the recovery dives - but there's at least an attempt to give glimpses into the other stories that start before the foreign divers arrive, and continue long after they go home.
 

Big Andy

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I watched this the other night, and had no idea that it was Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell as the two british divers :lol:
 

Massive Spanner

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I enjoyed it, but despite it being 2 1/2 hours long, it still felt like it only touched the tip of the overall story. For me it would've worked better as an 8/10 episode show. There was so much material they could have covered in more depth, like the parents, the seals, the coach etc. Even Viggo's and Colin's characters were so interesting yet underdeveloped.

I thought Farrell was brilliant.
 

Big Andy

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Were you watching it with your eyes closed?
No, but I just didn't twig it was them. I thought the guy looked familiar, never twigged it was fecking Aragorn though. The accent threw me off, I thought he was a british actor.
 

Big Andy

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Viggo I can get to be fair, kinda, but Farrell? How is this not Farrell?

I just never put two and two together tbh. I didn't see the cast list and had only found out about this film about 2 minutes before putting it on. He looked like an accountant or something ffs.
 

Donaldo

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I just never put two and two together tbh. I didn't see the cast list and had only found out about this film about 2 minutes before putting it on. He looked like an accountant or something ffs.
Admit it Bandy you were wasted/are going blind.