Released in 1988,
The Big Blue is based on real-life free-diving frenemies, Frenchman Jacques Mayol, played by Jean-Marc Barr, and Italian Enzo Maiorca, renamed Enzo Molinari in the film, played by legendary Jean Reno. (Reno also stars alongside Natalie Portman in another Besson film,
This and That: an evening with the smooth assassins of ‘La Femme Nikita’ and ‘Leon: The Professional’
Luc Besson has a thing for assassins, hitmen and professional killers, and his two best films on the subject are streaming right now at SBS On Demand.
The Big Blue became the highest grossing film of the 1980s in France. It’s easy to see why: even though it is heavily fictionalised, the men the characters are based on are fascinating. Jacques Mayol (1927–2001) was a free-diving legend. In 1976, he broke the 100-metre record, with a no-limits dive off the coast of Elba, Italy. During the dive Mayol’s heartbeat dropped from sixty to twenty seven beats per minute. This ‘mammalian diving reflex’, which is more noticeable in whales, seals and dolphins, is explored in the film. Meanwhile dare-devil Enzo Maiorca (1931–2016) defied medical experts by swimming to a depth of more than 91 metres in one breath and in 1988 set his final record at 101 metres.