We live in an era of return to television that has made things difficult for cinema on the big screen. Despite the fact that this year is proving to be hopeful at a time of uncertainty with the success of many proposals outside franchisees, people are still reluctant to the original. The platforms continue to release movies every weekend and not many times it is at the levelbut Amazon Prime Video’s bet on ’13 lives’ (Thirteen Lives, 2022) is different.
A leap in quality that really should have gone to theaters
After a year of catastrophes on HBO Max, with Netflix tightening its belt and the smaller ones taking a backseat, the platform market model is beginning to show its tricks too much. And except for isolated cases such as ‘Predator: the prey’ (Prey, 2022) of Disney +, the proposals of “a single episode” within a cascade of series do not penetrateand in the case of the new film by Ron Howard, another film could be expected to fill the catalog without much more importance.
‘Thirteen Lives’ might have been one of the worst examples imaginable of this soulless padding tendency, as it narrates a true story of the quest to rescue a Thai boys’ soccer team trapped in Tham Luang cave during an unexpected storm. Faced with unthinkable obstacles, a team of the world’s most skilled and experienced divers, exceptionally capable of navigating the maze of narrow flooded cave tunnels, plot their rescue.
To do so, they join Thai forces and more than 10,000 volunteers in trying to get the twelve boys and their coach out while the world is watching and time is running out. And… well, everyone knows what happened next. It is surprising how little is being said this excellent recreation of an impossible mission beyond the natural impact that the case continues to have at the collective level. In fact, it may be what plays against the film the most, the recent events make it seem more opportunistic and less “worthy” of being told.
panic cinema
Actually, the core of his footage could be the dream sequel to ‘The Descent’ if it wasn’t a story we know so well. As a dramatization, ’13 Lives’ follows other recent recreations such as an excellent Nat Geo documentary, a less successful independent film and precedes a Netflix miniseries to come. The Miracle of the Thai Cave is a great story to tell, but it’s doubtful that any version will reach the unspeakable levels of tension and claustrophobia of Ron Howard’s version.
This approach to an adventure with survival features offers here an opposite version of a film with similar ingredients in the director’s filmography, ‘In the heart of the sea’ (2016), in which he faced another story of extreme circumstances with all the resources of the most predictable recent Hollywood, the pounding fanfare and the green screen, here replaced by a documentary sobriety without cheap emotion with which Horward continues to demonstrate unusual versatility and skill as a craftsman.
But in addition, it offers this change of schemes without giving up its signature. Ron Howard is a director driven by emotion, and in a story so prone to cheap candy, he is not only able to sidestep the dynamics of Hollywood dramatization, resisting the temptation to stylize the story, but demonstrates his expert hand and determination to portray the exploits of risk professionalsconnecting with his filmography with crews full of invisible complicity and stoic heroism, with carefully outlined castings.
Ron Howard’s signature look
Like it more or less, he is an author who completes a logical path from ‘Llamaradas’ (1991), ‘Apollo 13’ (1995) and the aforementioned ‘In the heart of the sea’ and, however, his greatest virtue in ’13 lives ‘ is his decision to disappear and let the images and the protagonists speak for themselves. The vicissitude is a triple somersault and a typical tear puncture never slips from him in works of this style like ‘The impossible’ (2012), supported, yes, by an exceptional cast that brings emotions to life subcutaneously.
a rude Viggo Mortensena Colin Farrell which exudes an admirable restraint, and Joel Edgerton leaving great details as the final discovery in their own way, they are accompanied by two Sanchos as Tom Bateman and Paul Gleeson. The main protagonists are the two British divers Richard Stanton and John Volanthen who located the missing children more than a week later and despite that, the film avoids the white savior narrative, casting its net wide by giving time to the many people involved in the rescue.
The best strength of the direction is that it lets the facts breathe in an ultra-realistic way, perhaps little does it know that what counts is such a caliber of madness that it is otherwise impossible to imagine the difficulties and problems of an unprecedented plan. Howard is limited to ensuring that the viewer can be there and decode the experience to understand the minute miracle achieved. We all know at least the broad outlines of those 18 days and more importantly, we all know the ending, so to inject false suspense would be to swindle and hide the hand.
Much more than a reproduction of real events
When the real events were already so incredible, the narration does not need to overload the soundtrack or squeeze its characters to be exciting, guided by a commitment to expertise and a deep respect for all involvedthere is no need for any pilon hammer to remind us that the best of people can appear at the worst possible moment, enhancing ’13 lives’ control over the viewer precisely because of its lack of underlining, perhaps this is what my colleague when he talks about how he seems to be adapting a Wikipedia entry.
And the viewer cannot be blamed for feeling that way. Watching the movie at last seems mechanical because you know the ending, but there is also something really dark (disturbing, almost) permeating its more than two hours that Howard emphasizes in Mortensen’s character, because you know that the probability strongly suggested the title ’13 Fiambres’ and the movie makes it very clear that that’s the real perspective of the heroes all along. Not only does it delve into the ethical dilemmas and doubts about the decision to sedate the children, but it also conveys a constant sadness, and the characters’ sense of nihilism contrasting with the external euphoria in a disturbing way.
Within that almost elegy tone, the film is dedicated to one of the rescuers, whose death is shown in a neutral way, but harboring an unexpected dreamlike power that rivals any horror scene of the year, a sample of the narrative elegance and the good taste of a solid and patient Howard, who knows how to give ’13 Lives’ heart without throwing bags of tears at the screen, but with the handling the suspense to the limit and with the sense of adventure of one of the most effective workers of modern Hollywooda luxury for a well-to-do and mimetic platform cinema that needs to take note of events like this if it doesn’t want to drown ahead of schedule.