Emergency doctor, the navigator whose first name is not even known, is casting off from Gibraltar to Ascension Island in the South Atlantic. Alone on board her 40-foot sailboat, she headed south towards Ascension Island. An island in the St Helena archipelago in the South Atlantic where Darwin planted an entire forest. The sailor lives in this dream of discovering this place.
The film starts very slowly, without any dialogue. It brings the violence of a car accident back to the silence and loneliness of the sea. Without saying it, without explaining it, our emergency doctor needs to clear his head, to leave his stressful life. We understand it by the moments of pleasure to watch a sunset at sea, or by this bird that comes to visit the shore for a while. Our paramedic can let go.
Even if the film is not dynamic in the first part, sea lovers will appreciate the passages on the refuelling, stowage of the boat, the first hours of sailing or the manoeuvres to hoist the sails.
Filmed directly on board, the shots are quite tight, but allow us to experience the navigation fairly faithfully. In her exercise, actress Susanne Wolff sails naturally. The manoeuvres reproduce reality well. The first part of this film was not shot in a swimming pool and it shows. As a sailor, you appreciate it.
Unfortunately, later on, the navigator will encounter a storm. If this gust of wind serves as a break in history, the images under the fire hose (without wind!) have no realism. Yes, the solo sailor has to face wind and sea, but the filmed representation is not very credible for connoisseurs.
Fortunately, the rest of the story takes us away. Because the day after this storm, the sailor woke up near a migrant boat. Its route positions it off Mauritania about 300 miles away, just between the Canaries and Cape Verde.
This situation created a real dilemma for the navigator. Indeed his sailboat is too small to accommodate the shipwrecked whose old trawler is sinking. This woman whose professional life consists of saving lives is trying to mobilize relief efforts to help these people. But she hits a wall, her contacts don't find a valid answer.
I'm not telling you how the paramedic is going to get away with it, or what choice she's going to make to keep the film from being revealed. But this cruel dilemma is not easy to manage. A situation that we do not wish for anyone...
