In Need of Seawater review, a documentary shaped by poetry and identity

What is it to define yourself? I mean REALLY find that complete, all-encompassing description that causes everyone around us to KNOW who we are, or at least are striving to be? Is it evident? Is it veiled?

Do you actually feel the freedom to simply BE and believe others will accept you instead of offering judgement, discrimination, or just basic apathy? These are the kinds of questions brought to bear through this incredibly impactful, relevant, utterly grounded, necessary documentary from writer/director/producer/editor Richard Yeagley.

Focused on the life of one man, namely poet and filmmaker Mark Anthony Thomas, the 26-minute film wastes no time launching us into a reality he must face and has both battled and triumphed through his entire lifespan to date….what it is to not only be a Black man in America, but a gay Black man.

This becomes a conspicuously transparent and openly candid exploration down the path and very heartbeat of an artist pushing against the grain and making it clearly known that he WILL not be discounted, disregarded, or totally dismissed. Quite the opposite, actually, and with emphatic, intensely emotional potency.

Unlike the standard documentary effort, Yeagley instead allows Thomas to take the stage himself via a home-based gathering of like-minded friends to whom he reads eleven poems to from his book “The Poetic Repercussion”, doing so with such an accessible, stirring, intentional, and quiet yet earnest fervor that immerses us and those gathered wholly and rawly into his life, from childhood to current, addressing universal yet individual themes that speak volumes to existence, his experiences, the search for meaning, self-worth, his orientation, and the building connection with the words that guide him through his poetry.

Offering an exposé on a man confronting the women who’s attempting to evoke desire in him that he just doesn’t feel (“Ocean Tides”), the perspective as a child of having a totally absent father (“Child Support Checkmarks”), a stunning verbal foray into what it is to wake up daily as a Black man (“Black Man’s Work”), the specter of having gone through the era of AIDS (“Ink Blot Testing”), lauding the legacy of civil rights leaders (“Even The Sky”), and the moving adoration of declaring love for his partner (“Exactly Why”), these and every other poem shared unequivocally, compellingly, and with conviction stimulates your soul. Period.

Additionally, it is the imagery that accompanies each and every poem that elicits further emotive engagement here, the sequences of water, archival footage, and also an actor playing “The Poet” (Ziaire Mann), the entirety ebbs and flows, constantly transforming and reinventing each and every intended sentiment the works are meant to convey and/or make us as the viewer feel.

There’s an urgency to it that is amazingly striking yet soothing. Likewise, the film’s messaging is equally persuasive through the engagement of the guests at Thomas’ home, relishing, relating to, and respecting his creative honesty.

Therefore, in the overall scope of the film’s adeptly executed core and powerful conceptualizations, “In Need of Seawater” stands as a brilliant example of not only documentary filmmaking, but of one man’s fervent, deeply considered utilization of language and resolute fearlessness to be everything he is.

The morphing of it into an eccentrically fascinating, magnificently inspiring, and universally applicable portrait of the human experience is one we should aspire to attain in our own outlooks on this shared world, for the betterment of ALL, and for a greatly needed unity that could HEAL us.

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