The Diver
2023 · 9m · Japan
Directed by Anderson Wright
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
After losing his wife in the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, Yasuo Takamatsu has dived in the Pacific Ocean every single weekend for over a decade, searching for her remains. The film is an intimate portrait of grief, enduring love, and the quiet ritual of remembrance.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Twelve years of weekend diving for his tsunami-lost wife, expressed as 'the absence of sound.' Beautifully devastating subject, almost certainly polished to a high gloss it doesn't need.
Twelve years of weekly diving for a wife lost to the Tōhoku tsunami — Wright treats grief as devotional ritual, using near-silence as 'the absence of sound.' The subject's persistence is the cinema; restraint is the only correct register.
Subject has dived every weekend for 12+ years searching for his wife's body — the director's near-silence-as-loss formal approach matches the subject's devotion. At 8:37 the restraint is the whole craft argument.
Reviews
I appreciate how calm and humble this film is, giving all of its time to Yasuo so we can feel close enough to him — a magnificent short doc exploring the pain of loss, the strength of love, and the beauty to be found in remembrance.
Yasuo's search is a meditative practice, an act of grieving, a way to stay close to Yuko's memory, and an effort to honor the love they shared.