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‘Freediver’ Review: Extreme Sports Doc Offers a Deep and Often Tender Look at a Unique Obsession
The unsinkable bond of a mother and son brings unexpected depth to 'Freediver,' Michael John Warren’s portrait of freediving phenom Alexey Molchanov.
As for the younger Molchanov’s early years, the film touches on the unsurprising (he was an exceptional swimmer even as a toddler) and the charming: Before the glinting nickname “machine,” he was called “retriever,” because he was like a puppy around his mother and older divers. On camera, Adam Skolnick, author of “One Breath: Freediving, Death and the Quest to Shatter Human Limits,” points out Trubridge’s seeming conflict of interest: He had held the record for no-fin diving for seven years when Alexey goes after it. His remarks on the impotence of the gesture pokes the viewers who may have already made the uneasy connection between one Alexey — moving freely around the globe, returning home to his wife and child in Moscow — and another Alexei who also starred in a documentary, but seemed to have lived in a very different Russia.
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