The Last of the Sea Women
“The Last of the Sea Women highlights a unique community of Korean women divers, most of whom are in their 60s and older.”
Title: The Last of the Sea Women (2024)
Director: Sue Kim 👩🏻🇺🇸
Reviewed by Li 👩🏻🇺🇸
Technical: 3.5/5
This past weekend, director Sue Kim’s feature debut, The Last of the Sea Women, received its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival. The Apple Original documentary follows an indomitable community of haenyeo, female divers who have been sustainably harvesting seafood from the ocean around South Korea for hundreds of years.
With indie powerhouse A24 as co-producer alongside Malala Yousafzai’s new production company, Extracurricular, it’s not surprising that The Last of the Sea Women boasts gorgeous, lilting cinematography. Underwater scenes move at an ethereal pace, while footage of Jeju Island, where much of the film takes place, majestically offers pink-hued sunrises and moody maritime fog.
The storytelling itself is much more straightforward. Kim embeds herself within a Jeju haenyeo community and follows the divers’ day-to-day lives. The lack of a forced structure works both for and against the film: On the one hand, viewers get to know these incredible women in their natural settings and can feel the immediate threats that water pollution and climate change pose on their livelihoods. On the other hand, this observational style of filmmaking can meander, leaving audiences with a deep respect for its subjects by the film’s end, but not much more. Without a clear call to action or narrative conclusion, it’s easy to let this documentary drift away in the memory as soon as the credits roll.
Gender: 5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES
This documentary lives and breathes female empowerment. Its core subject matter contends with all-female divers who work a dangerous and intensely athletic job, often as the main bread-winners in a historically patriarchal society. Behind the lens, Kim shares in production notes: “I would say at least 90% of the people involved in the film — from our crew to Extracurricular to Apple and A24 — have been women and it was a super cool experience.” Producer Yousafzai echoes that sentiment, musing, “With a female director, female producers, and a whole team featuring incredible women … it was a kind of matriarchal filmmaking project.”
Race: 5/5
The Last of the Sea Women spotlights a unique lineage of Korean women whose contributions finally earned them international recognition in 2016, when they were inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. As a viewer, it’s a privilege to look behind the curtain and see exactly what life is like for these venerated haenyeo on Jeju and neighboring islands. We watch their shamanistic rituals and hear about the basic frustrations of these working-class women. Their lack of healthcare coverage strikes a particularly effective chord, as one of the documentary’s brightest subjects, Joo Hwa Kang, suffers a foot injury that takes her out of commission for a year.
With fewer than 4,000 working haenyeo today, down from a peak in the 1960s of 30,000 (among Jeju Island’s then-population of 400,000), the film’s interview subjects emphasize how their way of life is under threat. So it’s all the more important now that filmmakers take the time and care to capture this centuries-old subculture before it’s too late.
Bonus for Age: +1.00
Among the women diving today, the vast majority are in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and even 90s. This is reflected in Kim’s film, with her intrepid heroes proudly introduced with their ages next to their names. But the film doesn’t just celebrate this demographic; Kim also looks at the up-and-coming generation of haenyeo, led by 30-year-old Sohee Jin and Jeongmin Woo (37). These younger women share their work on platforms like YouTube and Instagram, demonstrating the ways that haenyeo need to evolve if they want to have an enduring voice.
Mediaversity Grade: A 4.83/5
The Last of the Sea Women highlights a unique community of Korean women divers, most of whom are in their 60s and older. With beautiful cinematography to boot, Kim’s feature film debut invites viewers to immerse themselves among these real life “mermaids” and to champion the sustainability of the oceans that they (and we) need in order to survive for generations more.
Like The Last of the Sea Women? Try these other titles concerned with the environment.
Annihilation (2018)
Son of Monarchs (2021)
Siren