With swelling, convincingly majestic music, Last Breath lavishes on the details of this particular trade that remains unseen and unknown by the vast majority of people – mechanical thrusters, computer systems that beep and boop the ship into place, the buttons pushing “heliox” gas (a mixture of helium and oxygen) into the divers’ chambers so they can acclimatize, some crew members’ tan Crocs, the multicolor tangle of “umbilical cords” that provide divers breathable air, heat and critical contact with the bell.
Though bookended by too brief, too cliched on-land interludes, Last Breath is a process film that summarily gets down to business: Scottish diver Chris Lemons (Finn Cole), a relatively green and eager recruit, books a multi-day job fixing pipeline required to heat Scotland’s homes in the winter.
Based on real catastrophic events during a would-be routine pipeline fix 3,000ft below the surface of the North Sea in 2012, Last Breath is a gripping disaster flick of routine, improvisation and unfathomable experience – the participants shockingly cool under pressure, as the viewer descends into deep, deep stress.
Parkinson maintains a tight, 360-degree grip on the devolving situation; the film weaves seamlessly between diver, bell and ship, between situational cameras and filmic ones – a tricky task, given that much of the action occurs in pitch black, with characters rendered unrecognizable in heavy gear.
The workers are split into teams of three – Chris and Dave Yuasa (Simu Liu), a near-emotionless diver whose reputation for hyper-competency that precedes him, don the thick suits for work on the seafloor rig, while Duncan Allcock (Woody Harrelson), a 20-year veteran with a folksy, distinctly Harrelson-y affect, supervises from an underwater control hub known as the “bell”.
