Review of Don’t Be Prey – A refresher story of a swimmer who aims to avoid being shark food | Documentaries

TAt first glance, the title of this invigorating documentary about open water swimming seems to be a self-ironic remark regarding something competitors essentially have no control over: the possibility of becoming shark food. But, as practiced by Australian navigator Mark Sowerby, it has turned out to be a surprisingly profound and empowering principle about choosing to accept fears and anxieties, and not be carried away by one’s inner weaknesses.

Surbhi is the type often spotted: an investment banker seeking redemption. Drifting among the 1%, he focuses on long-distance swimming and agonizingly crosses the English Channel in 2015. Then his company becomes friendly with short sellers. His self-esteem is in tatters, and depression is consuming him. Realizing that he could process the trauma by spending extensive time in the pool, Sowerby decided that completing the other six stages of the Seven Oceans – a set of brutal canal crossings around the world – was the tonic he needed.

With the challenge designed to have participants encounter watery “kryptonite” at least twice, the physical aspect is intimidating. Highly dynamic drone footage emphasizes Sowerby’s plankton-like advance. One acerbic doctor sums up the effects of progressive hypothermia – Enemy No. 1 in the Scottish-Irish North Channel (34.5km) and Japan’s Tsugaru Strait (19.5km) – as “everything is slowly getting worse – a very miserable situation”. Great whites aren’t even the worst thing about Hawaii’s Molokai Channel (42 km); That would be like nightmarish-looking sharks darting vertically from the depths to eject fist-sized clumps of flesh.

But more than these aspects, marathon swimming is an exercise in confronting the mind and developing a kind of enjoyment of it. Sorby’s Gethsemane comes during a nighttime crossing of the Catalina Canal (32.3 kilometers), where he admits to simmering for hours through a soup of self-loathing. Director Jeff Tseng focuses insightfully on the coach’s role in determining whether this torture should continue or end; The man on the boat here, Tim Denyer, describes the mission as providing compassion, not compassion.

While the film also chooses to briefly profile several other fellow masochists in the community, it doesn’t quite touch rock bottom in chronicling Sowerby’s psychological recovery. But perhaps these things cannot be fully explained, they can only be experienced; If nothing else, this bold saga makes you glad he tried it for us.