Some true stories are too outrageous to have occurred in the first place. The new Netflix documentary from writer-producer Mark Monroe, Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster, is one of those kinds. It examines the vaulting ambition of one powerful CEO, Stockton Rush, that led to a very man-made tragedy. (Also read: Mountainhead movie review: A hangout trip with tech billionaires turns nasty in this blunt satire by Jesse Armstrong)
About the tragedy
The summer of 2023 turned into a frenzy of online speculation and coverage on the mysterious disappearance of the Titan submersible. The fatal accident claimed the lives of OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, and his son Sulaiman Dawood. The documentary is less about the disaster, and arrives loaded with that information like a death knell waiting to be heard. Instead, this is more of an interrogation into the fact that why such a disaster took place in the first place, when it could have been entirely avoided.
The point of failure
This was not an unforeseen tragedy. As the documentary proceeds in sobering detail over decades-long archival footage, video interviews, audio messages, and legal proceedings, we are shown that there were clear signs and multiple warnings that were sidestepped for as long as they were, without any consequences. At the centre of this is the maddening ambition of CEO Stockton Rush, who went ahead with the idea of constructing the central cylinder of the Titan using carbon fibre instead of the commonly used titanium.
Multiple employees and engineers voiced their dissent, and upon no proper addressal of such a grave issue, were left with no choice but to leave. The documentary returns to this point multiple times over the course of its runtime, where the central unit that went ahead with the mission anyway was driven by a cult-like alignment with the lead voice.
Final thoughts
Tightly edited with a demonstrable point-of-view approach to the multiple concerns that came much before the actual implosion, Titan The Oceangate Disaster moves ahead with confidence and poise. The film, however, strangely remains cold in dissecting the response to this tragedy all over the world.
As much as it is a film about a truly alarming tragedy, at its heart, it is about how the powerful (big swinging d***, as Rush intended to become) get away without any consequences in the real world. Due to the rampant oversight of so many safety and regulatory concerns in the room where the powerful made the decisions, lives were lost. This is but one specific, unavoidable tragedy- but there are so many microaggressions that take place every day, inextricably linked to the common man’s fate. Rules only apply to them.
Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster is now available to stream on Netflix.
