After premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017, Submergence gradually hit theatres worldwide over the last six months. The film is based on the novel by J. M. Ledgard, it stars Alicia Vikander and James McAcoy and it features beautiful cinematography that leaves you with quite a lot to think about.
Danielle Fllnders (Vikander) is preparing herself for a dive in a submersible to explore the ocean floor. The oceanographer uses mathematics to find out how sea life can live in total darkness and if and how this knowledge can be used to save our planet. Before she starts her trip to the Greenland Sea, she checks in a hotel at the French coast to enjoy some days of peace and prepare. At the same time, a man who does not want to give anything away about himself, is checking in into the same hotel, James Moore (McAvoy).
The two hotel guests meet at the beach and talk about everything and nothing. One thing is for sure, they understand each other and are interested in reaching the same goal: to make the world a better place. But what will it cost them?
While faith brought them together, faith also rips them apart. Danielle is starting her mission and has to face the fear that if something goes wrong, she will die on the bottom of the ocean. She tries to reach James for a month , but he does not respond to any of her calls. All she knows is that he is in Africa trying to build a water system in a village. What she does not know is that this is an alias he uses. The truth is, James is an undercover agent and tries to infiltrate a terror cell to stop a assassination. Unfortunately, he got captured and locked up. So, the only thing keeping both of them sane is their memories of each other when they first met.
Submergence is a melancholic modern love story that explores finding your own happiness and doing what feels right for the sake of human kind. In the light of recent events happening for the last couple of years, this movie speaks to me on so many different levels.
Two people who long for change, to turn the world to a better place and walk their chosen path they feel is the right one to follow. One might think that Danielle as a scientist is safe and that James is the one who takes the bigger risk. That is not the case. They both reach the edge and they both think for a second that they have miscalculated their chances to get out of a situation that does not feel right. In an extreme way, the story explores all kinds of human emotions. Those you have to face yourself, which are only in your head, along with fear, hope, loneliness, death.
James: Death. It gets very real when you’re watching somebody die in front of you. You’re thinking, is this all I am? Is this all I added up to? And all the clichés are true. You’re thinking, why now? Why did it have to be… this happen, before I realize what life truly is? It’s direct, it’s immediate, and it’s their whole life exposed to you.
Danielle: Did you think about your own death a lot?
James: I did, and I do.
Danielle: I’ve heard people telling me that they’ve had those exact same thoughts when they fell in love.
James: No, you don’t die when you fall in love.”
Before I went to the cinema to watch this movie I have read an article that describes the movie as the “metaphor of darkness” and that it is about “alienation, salvation and solitude”. When James read John Donne’s poem “No Man Is An Island” to Danielle, you start to understand the pull between loneliness and the longing for not be that anymore better.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
Between the light and the dark, Submergence will break your heart, put it back together, give you something to reflect on, and will leave you with an end which gives you no clear answers and your mind will still be processing everything for hours afterwards.
