See, this is the problem: One of the great attractors of freediving is the danger aspect. I'm sure Luc Besson knew that when he came up with the idea for The Big Blue.
How about this for a freediving flick:
Working title: The Ark.
Scene is near future. A company has build a mile-long luxury ship, Arca, that make up a floating city. During a two year span, the giant ship circles the entire globe, following the summer. The 60.000 inhabitants are comprised of every nationality of the civilised world, living a never ending life in luxury. Unfortunately, tensions rise between the various ethnic groups onboard the densely populated ship.
A young computer programmer of Caucasian ethnicity arrives at Arca to work in the security department as a programmer of surveillance systems. He's a former semi-professional freediver, but quit competitions when a close friend drowned, making him shy and withdrawn. He still yearns for the sensation of the ocean, and using his influence he alters the surveillance systems so he can sneak below decks to a secret military submarine hatch, a deep pool, where he can freedive in sea water when ever he wants.
He meets a young girl of Japanese ethnicity, she is the daughter of the CEO of Arca. She too is shy and withdrawn, being in a constant spotlight, and the two find a mutual understanding. They fall in love. During one of Arca's long time stops, in the Phillipines, they go snorkelling with some of his old freediving buddies, and they encounter a pack of dolphins.
The tensions between the ethnicities escalate, when a mad Caucasian first murders a Hindi, then poisons the water supply to a whole Semitic and Hindi neighbourhood. During the chase for the guilty, lead by Arca's charismatic chief of police, our freediver is caught under decks and mistaken for the terrorist.
Simultaneously, the tensions break into onboard riots and ethnic groups fight ethnic groups. UN forces are called in as support through the sub hatch, but amidst the chaos, the real terrorist plants home made bombs on the bridge and the explosions breaks loose the whole section and kills a vast number of people, including the terrorist. The UN sub mislands in the hatch and further damages Arca, who stops in the middle of the open waters. In the confusion, the freediver escapes and flees to lower decks. Sea water starts flooding into all sections of Arca, drowning many. The ship is sinking. The chief of police is caught in water masses. He almost drowns, but is saved in the nick of time by the freediver diving down and picking him up. They both fight water masses and manages to reach a safe point. Here they team up with other survivers, who are working hard to try and save Arca. The only way is to sail Arca aground on one the Hawaiian islands. Because the bridge no longer exits, no controls are available to fire back up the engines; the only way is to start one engine manually which can fire up the rest. No scuba gear is available, so only the freediver can reach the giant propeller engine on the outside bottom of the ship to activate a panel. He manages this task, but going back he is caught under water unable to escape. He gets lower and lower on oxygen, and eventually he looses consciousness - he drowns. Suddenly, an unseen being swims into the ship, reaches the drowned freediver and manages to push him to a dry ground where he autonomously regains consciousness. The dolphin swims away, without the freediver seeing his savior. As Arca slam lands on Hawaii, the freediver has to fight water masses one last time before the story ends.
Ok, I admit it, it's a work in progress. I suppose only Jim Cameron or Luc Besson would have both the ability and potential interest in such a weird idea. Fondue's idea is a lot easier to realize.
Chris Engelbrecht, Copenhagen
