THE LAST OF THE SEA WOMEN - Mark Reviews Movies

The Last of the Sea Women, Apple Original Films / A24

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 10, 2024

It's always pleasant when a documentary introduces us to people we might otherwise have never met. That's certainly the case with The Last of the Sea Women, which follows a group of women divers on South Korea's Jeju Island. These haenyeo, as they're called in the native language, work collecting seafood for local fishing cooperatives, but the practice is more than an economic market and a way of earning a living. It's a centuries-old tradition, dating back almost 300 years and recognized by UNESCO as a vital cultural heritage.

The extra attention hasn't helped the women divers on Jeju, whose numbers were once in the tens of thousands but have diminished to only a few thousand in modern times. It's difficult work, to be sure, because these women use no diving equipment, apart from masks and wetsuits, meaning that each of the hundred dives they make each day are dependent on the divers' ability to hold their breath.

They also dive deep enough that water pressure is a factor, so every time they return to the surface, the divers are fighting against that force. The masks and wetsuits, by the way, are recent and controversial additions to the job, so one can imagine what the dives were like in the 18th century, when women started taking over the practice.

An overwhelming number of haenyeo working today are over the age of 50. Most of the women we meet in director Sue Kim's film are in their 60s or 70s, and none of them seem ready to retire any day soon. Yes, some of them depend on the income, but others, who made money over decades-long careers or have other financial support (such as a deceased husband's pension, for example), still don't express a desire to quit. Indeed, they love diving, the sea, and the work itself too much to even consider it.

One woman, who has to take a year off due to an injury, can't wait to return. To be fair, that's partly because the job offers no medical benefits—only a payout for job-related death (She jokes that kind of money won't do her any good). Most of the reason, though, is because she is a woman of sea to the core of her being.

We feel that sense throughout this documentary, which isn't rosy about the job, as some of the aforementioned issues surrounding it should suggest, but is in awe of the women still doing it, despite the dangers and their ages and the multiple troubles arising in the modern age. The admiration displayed by the film is deserved, because these are resilient, thoughtful, and passionate divers, women, and people. Getting to know them feels like a privilege.

That's mainly because of the quality of people they are, but it's also because, as Kim makes clear time and again, the profession and tradition itself might not be around in any significant way for another few centuries. Based on the steady decline in numbers and the few candidates who prove themselves able to do the work, it might only last several decades, and that's only if other human factors don't ruin it before then.

Much of the film is devoted to watching the women dive, talk about the practical sides of both the dives themselves and the business around it, and spend time together outside of the water. We encounter individual divers, who tell their stories of taking on the work to become independent of familial and social expectation, to earn more income for their growing families, or to return to a job they once had but stopped after marrying. All of them treat the tradition as something worthy of respect, because they come from generations past who did it, but each one approaches the actual job with a degree of humility and ordinariness that says a lot about them.

Meanwhile, there are two younger divers, each one in her 30s, on another Korean island, who have a similar pride in the heritage they're continuing and modern way of looking at how to preserve it. They have become social media stars, with videos of them dancing to songs, swimming in the sea, and showing off their daily catches.

One dives to support her family, including a young daughter who aspires to follow in her mother's profession, and the other, who's currently the youngest haenyeo, has the goal of becoming the oldest to do the job. She's single, and there's a very funny, down-to-earth, and recognizable moment when one of the older divers meets her and instantly thinks the 30-year-old would be a perfect match for her son.

The reason the younger divers meet the older ones, though, is a matter of importance for the haenyeo specifically and, in their minds, the country in general. It's Japan's plan to release radioactively contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011. The divers have already seen the impact of rising global temperatures during their lives, noting the disappearance of certain species and the migration of tropical ones to the region, but for them, the potential of swimming in and potentially swallowing water contaminated by nuclear waste is far too far in terms of human interference on the environment.

It makes righteous activists of them all, as if we couldn't admire these women any more. The Last of the Sea Women makes us happy to meet these haenyeo and happier to know that people with such devotion have put their all into a necessary fight for the planet and humanity.

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