In the underwater tragedy of Netflix's 'Deepest Breath,' the appeal of the deep explained

[Editor's note: This story contains spoilers from the documentary "The Deepest Breath."]

In 2017, Laura McGann read a story in the Irish Times about a fatal accident involving Alessia Zecchini, a preternaturally gifted freediver from Italy, and Stephen Keenan, a well regarded safety diver, at the Blue Hole near Dahab, Egypt — a notoriously dangerous submarine sinkhole nicknamed the "divers' cemetery."

Even though the Irish filmmaker didn't know a thing about freediving — "At one point I googled 'What is freediving,'" she said — she was immediately intrigued by the "incredible images of people behaving more like seals or dolphins, just holding their breath underwater, swimming endlessly." She couldn't resist trying it herself, but quickly discovered her lung capacity was less impressive. "I'd try to hold my breath and then I'd gasp."

What started as a trip down the YouTube rabbit hole became a six-year filmmaking journey resulting in "The Deepest Breath," a gripping documentary, now streaming on Netflix, that tells a tale of underwater tragedy and arrives as the implosion of the Titan submersible remains fresh in the public memory.

Using a trove of archival video, photos and audio recordings, "The Deepest Breath" follows Keenan and Zecchini on separate journeys to the top of the freediving world. In the sport, athletes descend hundreds of feet below the surface of the ocean using a single breath, no