Big River Man: Martin Strel versus the Amazon

by Jessica Mosby
– USA –

Martin Strel does not look like an athlete. The overweight fiftysomething is an alcoholic, a flamenco guitarist, and a one-time professional gambler. But this Slovenian long-distance swimmer has swam the Mississippi, the Danube, the Yangtze – and now, the Amazon.

Director John Maringouin documents every mile of Strel’s 3,274-mile swim in Big River Man. For 66 days straight, Strel swam the Amazon ten hours a day, drank two bottles of wine every night, and was on the verge of insanity and physical debilitation. The 100-minute film won the World Cinema Cinematography Award: Documentary at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

The documentary is like Werner Herzog’s 1977 film Aguirre: The Wrath of God mixed with Al Gore’s 2006 An Inconvenient Truth. Strel’s official motto is: “I swim for peace, friendship, and clean water.” But environmentalism seems secondary to his intense connection to the water. Even though he lacks a swimmer’s physique, Strel seems to swim with relative ease. Even when he is on the verge of a complete physical collapse, he ignores doctor’s orders and gets back in the water. Like Klaus Kinski’s Aguirre, turning back from the heart of darkness is never an option.

Supporting Strel is his long-suffering computer programmer son Borut, and navigator Matthew Mohlke, a poker player by night and Wal-Mart employee by day. The support team and crew sail down the Amazon in a dilapidated river boat while Strel swims alongside. Having left college to handle his father’s press, marketing, fundraising, and swim coordination, Borut also narrates the film with observations like, “Strangest and worst day of my life.” Although he has no formal training, Mohlke navigates the river and ensures that Strel is always swimming with the current – all without the aid of a GPS.

Maringouin lovingly captures Strel’s incredible feat with long shots of him just swimming, the imposing Amazon surrounding him on all sides. The natural beauty of the river and jungle contrast Strel’s quickly deteriorating physical state. Its man versus nature in purest form, and at times it seems as if Strel has a death wish. He sleeps a mere four hours a night, won’t listen to the doctor traveling on the support boat, and remedies his sunburn by drinking copious amounts of beer. The more he swims, the farther he travels into the physical and mental unknown.

His grip on reality is tenuous at best, and yet Strel’s connection to the water is convincingly genuine. While swimming has made Strel internationally famous, and he has financially profited via sponsorships, the water is the only place where he truly seems at peace. Swimming the world’s longest and most polluted rivers may be a shtick, but Maringouin’s character study reveals a complicated man who relates to little outside of the water and is therefore driven by a single, dangerous ambition – even if that ambition has become a burden for Borut.

Strel might be crazy, but he is also very likeable. The documentary is filled with endearing moments – Borut’s concern for Strel’s physical well-being, Mohlke’s understanding of Strel’s mental decline, and Strel’s overwhelming determination to finish swimming the entire Amazon. In one touching scene, Strel wades out of the water, clad in a Speedo with his beer gut hanging out, to meet and dance with natives who live on the shore.

Big River Man is an intense and dream-like tour of one of the world’s remaining undocumented wonders. Maringouin injects humor and humanity into a story that is as much about environmentalism as it is about complicated familial relationships and the extremes people go to when following their dreams.

– Images courtesy of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

About the Author
Jessica Mosby is a writer and critic living in Oakland, California. In the rare moments when she’s not traveling across the United States for work, Jessica enjoys listening to public radio, buying organic food at local farmers markets, trolling junk stores, and collecting owl-themed tchotchke.