We're Always Touching Underwater (2023)

-Written by Kyle Bain.

The lucid visuals of an ever-changing seascape flood the screen as schools of fish and the lush, vibrant world beneath us comes to life via extreme close ups. However, We’re Always Touching Underwater explores the terror that exists in this waterworld as well. 

While there’s something soothing about the simplicity of the ocean life traversing your screen, We’re Always Touching Underwater eventually transitions to something almost horrifying. Via the introduction of a human hand, nothing more, nothing less, the film shifts and introduces the idea of terror existing in the natural world—seemingly at the hands of mankind. In some ways We’re Always Touching Underwater is two distinct films. One simply appreciates the world around us, while the other warns of the terror of mankind as it threatens to disrupt the ways of the world. 

Each half of this ethereal short film is charming in the sense that Director Erin Coates and her team of divers perfectly capture the truth that is our ocean. Never does a moment pass where something feels inorganic, disorganized, or deceitful. While the film includes no dialogue, no on-screen text, etc., it’s clear what the story is. Visually We’re Always Touching Underwater is impeccable, and it immerses viewers from the opening seconds. 

The score, while simplistic and easily accessible, is sophisticated, as it, along with the visuals, intentionally shifts in order to alter viewers’ understanding of what is transpiring before them. Much like the earlier visuals, the initial score in We’re Always Touching Underwater is soothing and charming. Though, as the film changes direction the score does along with it. Subtly harsher tones take over and pair themselves with the aforementioned human digits as they interrupt the wildlife and express the issues of human intervention in the natural world. Again, that shift in tone is subtle—patiruclarly in the way the score transitions—but the feeling that overcame me was anything but. We’re Always Touching Underwater suddenly horrified me—and I can’t help but commend Coates and Composer Alice Humphries for their perfection in this regard. 

The fluid, yet semi-cryptic storytelling of We’re Always Touching Underwater is endlessly intriguing, and as it further envelops viewers in its charismatic visuals, it becomes increasingly more difficult to find fault in what Coates creates. We’re Always Touching Underwater is a brilliant cinematic venture that may only have benefitted from a minor inclusion of exposition. 

Directed by Erin Coates. 

8.5/10 = WORTH RENTING OR BUYING