2024 Movie
Dir. Female director & Sue Kim · United States of America · English, Korean
A powerful ode to the elderly indigenous divers of South Korea fighting to protect their livelihood
On Jeju Island, there lives a fierce group of elderly women who free-dive and catch sea creatures for a living. They’re called Haenyo, considered indigenous because of the ingenious ways they’ve kept the South Korean tradition alive for decades. In this beautiful documentary, Director Sue Kim follows them under the sea and beyond as they fight to preserve their way of life, which is threatened by global warming (the creatures have gone deeper to avoid warm waters), corporate interests (Fukushima’s radioactive waste, if dumped in the ocean, would affect the community), and waning public interest (only a handful of the Haenyo are under 70 years old). There’s also the issue of payment and protection, because as one freediver puts it, “What’s the use of being recognized by UNESCO if we can’t earn enough to sustain ourselves?” The Last of the Sea Women tackles all this and more using the most gorgeous shots I’ve seen in a while.
On the shores of Jeju Island, a fierce group of South Korean divers fight to save their vanishing culture from looming threats.
"It’s designed to make you care for each and every spirited haenyeo and want to fight for them."
— Proma Khosla
"These women have faith that this will be the case. It seems Kim also has faith, and ends her documentary with a moment of shared communal joy as the community celebrates the haenyeo at an annual festival. Me? I’m not so sure."
— Marya E. Gates
Follows the Haenyo, female free divers who catch sea creatures for a living, as they fight to preserve their culture against an increasingly hostile world.
The cinematography by Iris Ng, Eunsoo Cho, and Justin Turkowski will leave you breathless. The shots of the elderly divers undersea, in particular (at once vast and intimate) are sights to behold.
Elderly women free-diving for a living is an impressive topic in and of itself, but to see these women fight to protect their culture, with NatGeo-worthy shots to boot, is something else entirely.
Renee Cuisia is the lead curator at A Good Movie to Watch. In her spare time, she likes to watch K-dramas and analyze them to death. She's also seen You've Got Mail one too many times but is still convinced it's one of the greatest films out there.
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