9-time Emmy Award-winning producer Martin Khodabakhshian directs and produces Breathe, a captivating documentary following New Zealander William Trubridge, a man who seems to put the entire concept of extreme sports to shame. Trubridge pushes his physical and mental limits as a routine gig practicing the sport of freediving. Freediving is, quite simply, diving as deep as possible without the aid of oxygen or other types of artificial aids. The film follows Trubridge as he attempts, on one single breath of air, to break his own world record by diving to a depth of 300 feet in the deepest blue hole in the world - Dean's Blue Hole in the Bahamas.

Breathe is at its most fascinating when Khodabakhshian focuses on Trubridge himself, an intriguing character whose bravado is awesome to watch. The film features rather amazing footage of Trubridge doing his dives, along with interviews of his family members who constantly fear that he's pushing too far this time around. The film tries to build up the awesomeness of the dive with mixed results, mostly because the interviews with locals who fear the hole aren't nearly as captivating and at times seem to poke fun of the locals who, it's stressed repeatedly, are "afraid" of the blue hole.

The original music by Matthew de Luca and Neil de Luca is effective, while Khodabakhshian's camera work is reason enough to catch this pretty amazing 51-minute documentary. The film is being released on home video by FilmWorks Entertainment on September 18th, 2012 and you can get your own copy just to the left of this review.

Fans of extreme sports and diving will likely be mesmerized by Trubridge's effort here along with Khodabakhshian's beautiful photography and respect for the subject matter.

© Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic