This Friday Apple TV+ will debut the documentary “The Last of the Sea Women.” Get ready to meet a band of feisty grandmother warriors often called real life mermaids.
On South Korea’s Jeju Island a group of women have been diving to the ocean floor without oxygen tanks to harvest seafood for their livelihood. These divers, known as haenyeo, are all women and are now almost exclusively senior citizens. Their work, which has been passed on for generations spanning multiple centuries, is considered so dangerous that they cannot be insured. Filmmaker Sue Kim remembers being an 8-year-old on vacation with her family and seeing these women for the first time.
"They were in their wetsuits and they were walking into the water," Kim recalled. "They were so loud, but so bold, and confident, and fun, and vibrant. And they just made such an impression on me. They really imprinted on me as a new model of womanhood that I could aspire to. I didn't have to be just demure and pretty. I could be strong, and empowered, and loud, and funny."
Kim remained fascinated by them as she grew up. When she became a filmmaker, she kept thinking about making a film about the haenyeo and started going back to Jeju Island to check in with them. On one of those trips, she met an 84-year-old haenyeo coming out of the water who told Kim, “we are the last generation of haenyeo.”
That was when Kim felt compelled to take action and make "The Last of the Sea Women."
"It transitioned into an urgent imperative to document and memorialize them before they weren't around anymore," Kim said. "That was really the genesis of this film. But it was basically a lifelong obsession that turned into an urgent mandate now that they're on the verge of extinction."
"The Last of the Sea Women" catches up with these women when most have become grandmothers and are ranging in age from 60 to even 90. But they are keeping the haenyeo traditions alive. Kim interviews the women but also includes some stunning archival footage.
"We got most of the archival material from this one video source, a news program in the '60s," Kim explained. "It's beautiful footage because they went underwater. And it racks my brain to think about the fact that they had underwater cameras in the 1960s. But there was about a 20-minute video that provided all that incredible archival material. We actually had quite a bit more archival material in the film, but we were not granted access or the rights to use it. But it's a shame because there is some really great black and white photography, and some black and white videography of the haenyeo at work in their old, very traditional diving wear, which was just thin white cotton suits, nothing like the warm protective wetsuits that they have now."
Producer Malala Yousafzai knew this was the perfect project for her new production company.
"My goal was to work with women and young artists to help them reflect on the world as they see it," Yousafzai said. "When I heard about the stories of the haenyeo, I believed that this was a story that we needed to tell because it's one of the few matriarchal societies in the world. They are talking about very urgent and relevant issues as well. But at the same time, these women are fierce and strong and bold and resilient, and they have such a strong community. I thought that their stories could inspire so many women and girls out there, including me."
Principal filming took almost two years to complete, which allowed the filmmakers to really capture story arcs that happened naturally over time.
One of those arcs involved how the haenyeo face a changing world that is polluting their ocean spaces. Chief among these threats is the one posed by Japan’s controversial plan to dump treated radioactive waste water from the Fukushima nuclear plant accident into the ocean. The concern over how that could threaten their livelihood and the ocean, prompted haenyeo Soon Deok Jang to travel to Switzerland to advocate for her community at the United Nations. UNESCO inscribed the Culture of Jeju Haenyeo in 2016 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. So Soon Deok Jang spoke as an indigenous person trying to protect her way of life.
One of the things Kim documents well is the underwater work these women do.
"The underwater cinematography component was a bit of a production logistics that we had to figure out," Kim explained. "I am not a very strong swimmer, and I could not learn how to do scuba because I'm a little bit claustrophobic. So we really needed someone that could operate camera really beautifully underwater and just take direction from me above water on the boat, but be down there by themselves. And so we found this incredible underwater cinematographer named Justin Turkowski, and he is a free diver himself. And we had a great creative collaboration."
Kim also shows the camaraderie of the women, their feistiness, their humor, and their dedication to maintaining their traditions. She also introduces us to a pair of young women who take on the haenyeo traditions with a modern twist, using social media to try and revive the ancestral lifestyle.
Working on the film, Yousafzai proved to be as taken in by the haenyeo as Kim had been.
"I love the moments when the haenyeo are together," Yousafzai said. "Sometimes they are teasing each other. They're laughing together. They're sometimes arguing a bit. By the end of the day, they are still united, they're still together, and they are singing folk songs about the fact that they will keep striving and they will keep doing this job. They'll help the community survive. Those moments really stayed with me."
Through the shoot, Kim discovered how caring the haenyeo were.
"I knew that they were super cool and tough and strong and empowered but once we actually started filming with them, we were always so warmly welcomed by them," Kim stated. "So they were constantly breaking the fourth wall when we were filming them. We would be filming and trying to be an observational fly on the walls, and they'd come over and feed our camera operators and our cinematographers, the sea urchins that they had caught that morning. So even though it was a little bit disruptive to the filming, we'd have to stop filming and accept the kind and generous food that they were trying to feed us. It was so touching to see that that was how they were caring for us. And I didn't expect that warmth and nurturing grandmotherly behavior from them."
You can experience that nurturing vibe with Kim's "The Last of the Sea Women," an intimate portrait of these fierce, funny and tough women who offer a joyous sense of empowerment. The documentary starts streaming Friday on Apple TV+.
