by Zoe Paddock

The sea, and swimming in it, is often seen as sublime and mystical, and cinema is regularly described in similar terms by overzealous critics. I feel that a deep dive into the intersection between the two should not only focus on scale and profundity, but also be looked upon with joy and a sense of humour. Frank Perry’s The Swimmer (Frank Perry, USA, 1968) centres on an advertiser who decides that instead of driving eight miles, he will return home by swimming through backyard swimming pools (I mean, why ever not? I can’t think of a better use of time!). In my retrospective on the sea and swimming in cinema, I will venture beyond an eight-mile stretch of suburban swimming pools in Middle America, while retaining the surreal essence seen in this film focusing on a man wading in and out of 16 by 32-foot concrete rectangles. We voyage from Hampstead Heath to the Scottish water channels and from the Irish Coast to the Tasman Sea to determine what water and swimming cinematically signifies, in an eclectic mix of maritime folklore, swimming societies for the elderly, and sunken pianos.

The Ponds: Proverbs and Pondering

Patrick McLennan and Samuel Smith’s meandering documentary on the frequenters of Hampstead Heath Ponds, The Ponds (Patrick McLennan and Samuel Smith, United Kingdom, 2018) spotlights one of the most eccentric cross-sections of North London. Emerging from Highgate Men’s Bathing Pond is an American man overfond of Russian proverbs, an all-male swimming group called the East German Ladies Swimming Team, and a lovely elderly man called Chris. Chris recites the Highgate Lifebuoys’ (the Highgate Men’s swimming club) non-sensical rallying cry “We give a yell and we give a yell, and we give a good substantial yell! For when we yell, we yell like Highgate. High high highgate!” He later says that the essence of this anthem was the robust sentiment ‘Don’t hesitate’, the simplicity of which I found deeply moving. The water and the ritual of swimming seem like an inoculation against the drudgeries of daily life. Funnily enough, the American man pithily describes this very feeling with a Russian proverb: Zhiaia Voda means ‘living water’ and connotes a synergy between human life and pond life. Nowhere is this idea more apparent than in the interview with a woman singing ‘Great is Thy Faithfulness’ on her first lap every morning, putting emphasis on the line “Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow”, after the death of both her mother and sister to breast cancer within an 18-month period. Her singing and swimming are haunting and visceral, and a moving expression of love. In this moment, the viewer witnesses a ritual of transference from human body to body of water: as writer Nell Frizell articulates, “the pond would hold it”. Along with the New Year’s Day swimming races and a rap sung by a chorus of women about the events of the year 2017, it is clear how this entry focuses on the suspension of time and troubles, and with making the quotidian seem simultaneously silly and glorious.

The Piano: A Serene Abyss

In a similar vein of time and temporality, one of the most affecting scenes from Jane Campion’s The Piano (Jane Campion, New Zealand/Australia/France, 1993) depicts how the sea belongs to its own realm of not only suspension but pensiveness. In one of the penultimate scenes, Ada, the protagonist who has hitherto remained mute and only communicates through playing the piano, places her hand on the surface of the sea as she travels via rowing boat. Though this conjures an atmosphere of peace, she subsequently decides to plummet into the Tasman Sea with her piano as it is thrown overboard. This is undeniably harrowing and tragic, as the silence of the sunken piano juxtaposes the expression it grants Ada. Yet, in this moment, whilst her hair and clothes are suspended in water, her introspection is matched with an abject silence and quietude which compels her to release herself from the piano. Upon her resurfacing she says, “What a death. What a chance. What a surprise. My will has chosen life.” Cinematically, the sea has acted as catalyst for euphoric renewal; serving both a narrative and potently emotive purpose.

Swimmer: A Curiosity

The act of keeping afloat in the water relies on cohesive rhythm and motion. It is the physicality of the body in water juxtaposed by waves of nostalgia and whimsy which characterise Lynne Ramsay’s Swimmer (Lynne Ramsay, United Kingdom, 2012). It has been noted for its lack of cohesive narrative as, phantasmagoricaly, it follows a man swimming through the lochs, rivers, canals and streams of Scotland. Yet this lack of structure encapsulates the feeling of swimming, which is inherently 'flaneur’-ish (unless you are confined to lengths at the leisure centre, which is hard to romanticise). With its monochrome filter, the body of the swimmer is a striking white against the void of black, highlighting his agility, the mechanics of muscle movement and aerodynamism, and both the effort and the fluidity of the human form moving through water. As the swimmer glides past reeds, a radio transmission of choral singing creates a sense of peace. However, the swimmer is then suddenly set upon by Lord of the Flies-esque children with spears and arrows, for no apparent reason other than to create frenetic energy in the film. Yet the tempo is still set by the song ‘The Very Thought of You’, creating a meandering pace in which it is the viewer’s pleasure to languish.

Song of the Sea: To the Waters and the Wild

The animated story of a selkie child, Song of the Sea (Tomm Moore, Ireland/Belgium/Denmark/France/Luxembourg, 2014), encapsulates the coastal folkloric tradition of Ireland. The prologue reads, “Come away, O human child!/ To the waters and the wild/ With a faery, hand in hand,/ For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand”, taken from W. B. Yeats’ poem ‘The Stolen Child’. In this film, the sea is a personification of those who are lost and unreachable, exemplifying mythology’s purpose as an aid to explain the unfathomable. The film records the legend of Mac Lir, whose heart was broken into pieces by a great tragedy and “such was his anger that he cried a whole ocean”. This sees the sea’s space within both oratory and cinematic tradition as an aid to broach the inexpressible. However, it is important to emphasise that this film is aimed at children and as such the sea is also represented through a gaze of wonder, curiosity, and possibility, whilst also harnessing the communal and personal stories of those who wish to feel such wonder, curiosity and possibility amidst Mac Lir’s tears.

Though these drifting meditations may pose more questions than answers, the variety of genres of these films shows how storytellers find the aesthetics of water and human encounters with it useful on a symbolic and metaphorical level, and regularly employ them to tell their tales. In many ways it is a visualisation of the role of cinema: it will hold us, suspend us, baffle us and make us want to yell to “High, High Highgate”.

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