Deep Water – Directed by Jerry Rothwell and Louise Osmond

In 1969 the London Times sponsored a much-publicized yachting competition challenging sailors to complete the first solo trip around the world. Of the nine men daring enough to accept the challenge and secure funding, Donald Crowhurst—a father of four and inexperienced sailor—seemed the least likely of candidates. Deep Water is the tale of his journey.

Misters Rothwell and Osmond are fine filmmakers, culling a powerful documentary from interviews and autobiographical film and writings recorded during the sailors’ navigation around the southern globe. But beyond their sober handling of the subject, Deep Water succeeds for the unmistakable affect of the personal testimony of Crowhurst and his fellow yachtsmen. Deciphering a reconfigured take on life after hundreds of days battling the elements without human contact, the men penned searing indictments of their past selves in personal testimony ranging from philosophic to completely mad. Rhymed against studio interviews of the people they left behind, the haunting recitals of the sailors’ logs proves the ultimate punch.

The Namesake – Directed by Mira Nair

Mira Nair adapts Pulitzer winner Jhumpa Lahiri and the translation is so seamless it’s dumbfounding the source material originated anywhere but with Ms. Nair. Spun from a sage father’s life altering incident with the work of Russian author Nikolai Gogol, this tail of Indian immigration into a New York life finds Ms. Nair in peak form amongst the director’s common themes of family, culture and identity. A direct corollary to her Monsoon Wedding, the film floats like memory on a series of episodes charting the family’s evolution through decades of assimilation. The Namesake is a touching novel presented here as an equally powerful film, Ms. Nair utilizing the truth of image to infer the warm tones of Northeastern autumns and springs as a longing dream of the searing oranges and golds of Bombay. In her hands the sounds, sights and emotions of Ms. Lahiri’s novel gain dimension, embellished in translation from one art to the next at the will of a skilled, sensitive and deeply expressive filmmaker. I cried like a baby.