Original subtitles

[David Blaine] Growing up I never felt like I fit in.

I wasn't the fastest or the strongest.

But I found a skill that set me apart... endurance.

It all began with extreme cold.

This became my lifelong obsession.

To discover things that seem impossible,

magical, death-defying.

[thud]

[thud]

I'm traveling to the Arctic Circle in

the middle of winter.

This is Lapland where Finland meets Norway,

Sweden, and Russia.

It's a punishing environment.

During this time of the year,

temperatures can drop to negative 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

It's sparsely populated.

And in this part of the world,

there are more reindeer than people.

- One, two, three.

[♪ upbeat music playing]

[David Blaine] It's an unusual place to go

searching for magic.

In this snow-covered wilderness.

It's what you would imagine the ultimate winter

wonderland to be.

But I'm on a search for people who endure this

freezing environment to perform superhuman feats.

[screams]

- All right. Don't die!

Yeah!

[♪ intense music playing]

[thud]

Oh, yeah!

[Ken screams victoriously]

[David Blaine] Oh! Damn!

- That was good.

- Oh my God!

- That was so fun.

- What?! Whoa!

- I look up at like 1,000 feet of just flat rock

with snowy tops, and it's just so mighty,

and I feel stronger every time.

[screams]

[David Blaine] Ken has been called the last Viking on earth.

[Ken Stornes] I draw my power from the Vikings.

They would scream their way into battle.

They would run towards death without fear.

[thud]

Wooo-hooo!

[David Blaine] He’s from Norway where the "Death Dive"

was created.

- A Norwegian death dive,

it looks like you are going to land flat on your stomach.

But in the last millisecond,

you tuck in and protect yourself.

[David Blaine] In 2023, Ken broke the world record

for the highest death dive when he jumped

132 feet into a fjord.

- The hard thing for that jump was definitely

the mental barriers because it's,

it's high enough to definitely kill you.

You have to be OK with the outcome.

Did my first, like, backflip on the ground,

when I was 15, around then.

- And then did you have dive training?

- No, that was something we did,

like a result of many years of gym,

like doing tricking and parkour and gymnastics and then

it just like evolved.

[David Blaine] Ken transforms the landscape into

his own playground.

- This is the ancient art of getting to know

the snow before you jump in it, you know?

You got to befriend the snow so it doesn't hurt us tomorrow.

It's been something we've, like, made jokes about.

But I kind of feel it's true, too.

I feel like to get to know the snow and

get to know the nature and pay respects.

You ready for this?

- Yes. - Let’s go!

[♪ triumphant music playing

Richard Wagner "Ride of the Valkyries"]

[snowmobile approaching]

[David Blaine] We found an area with high cliffs and

enough snowfall for Ken to teach me a bit of

his jumping techniques.

- No rocks. Should be good. - Yeah?

- Make sure your face is protected.

You wanna use your elbows to shoot in.

When you feel like you’re flying,

try to meet the ground.

- Yeah.

- Meet the ground and smack it.

[David Blaine] When I get up to the top it actually

looks and feels much higher.

And for Ken, this isn't even a warm-up jump.

I suddenly understand how much mental discipline

his jumps demand.

[Ken Stornes] 3, 2, 1. Go!

[thud and grunt]

[♪ inquisitive music playing]

You good?

[David Blaine] Yeah, I took a neck shot.

I'm just kidding.

- There's one more thing I want you to see.

- This is crazy.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[splash]

Whoa!

[Ken screams victoriously]

Watching you, that's something I really respect.

That, like, commitment to one idea.

Magic is that.

Cause everything else disappears.

- Yeah, like you have to know the risk and

you have to feel the fear.

- Yeah. - But before it’s like,

you just have to remove every like,

limitations in your mind.

To be able to overcome it.

- Yeah.

Ken's right.

It's important to understand the risks and be prepared.

For my first televised stunt, I wasn't.

I failed on live TV when I tried to remain encased

in a block of ice for three days and three nights.

It started with the initial idea of I just love how ice

looks and then I started thinking what if,

what if I can be inside of it?

I committed to doing it in the most public place possible.

I wanted to break myself out of the ice at the end.

But at 63 hours my safety team ended the stunt early

because I was hallucinating and on the brink of collapse.

[reporter] He’s been held together by spit and

adrenaline inside... the adrenaline is now gone.

We gotta make sure he doesn’t go into shock.

[David Blaine] I was destroyed.

The ice had done more damage to me than any stunt

that I've ever done.

Being in the block of ice changed my

outlook on everything.

I pushed my mind and body to the breaking point.

That failure is what led me to this search.

For people who are mentally tough in the

most extreme environments.

Now I'm going to meet Inka Cagnasso,

a world-class Finnish skydiver.

Watching Inka dance in the sky,

it's easy to forget the risks involved especially

in this climate.

Wow. Jeez.

That is unbelievable.

[Inka Cagnasso] When I was a kid,

I went through the dark,

cold winters like walking to school when

it's like minus 30 Celsius and you really need to

find a mindset.

You just need to toughen up.

[David Blaine] It takes real endurance to train for hours on

end in the wind tunnel,

let alone to fly in subzero temperatures as Inka does.

One of my favorite activities is jumping out of airplanes.

I've done it more than 500 times;

the feeling is exhilarating.

But I've never done it in these freezing conditions,

which makes it much more dangerous.

Wow.

- Hey. - Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- How many hours do you have?

- I have like over five and half thousand hours now.

- Wow! - Yeah it's a lot.

You ready to play?

[David Blaine] Inka is taking me on an Arctic skydive,

where I'll experience the coldest natural environment

that I've ever been in.

But first, she wants to test our ability to jump together.

Inka's longtime collaborator, Lauri, is joining us.

- When we’re watching beautiful videos of skydiving

we don’t see the part that’s just so important,

which is the camera flyer.

[David Blaine] Lauri’s camera is strapped to his helmet,

and it's heavier than a bowling ball.

- Stacking those nine kilos to your head and then

jumping out of the plane and going 300 kilometers

towards the ground...

...is a bit nuts.

[wind gusts]

- It's a huge airfield. - But I see these patches of ice.

- The runway and all the bit, like, that's very slippery.

[David Blaine] Three years ago I had a bad landing and

I broke my ankle.

I broke the bone in multiple places.

Ripped three ligaments and,

I never really recovered the ankle.

And because of this accident, I stopped skydiving.

[Inka Cagnasso] I can see that it's at the back of his head,

like is this going to happen again?

Am I potentially going to hurt my ankle again?

[David Blaine] The longer I didn't skydive,

the more difficult it has become to get back

into the sport.

But jumping with Inka here presents a rare and beautiful

opportunity to build back both my confidence and

push my ability to tolerate the cold.

But any time you skydive in freezing temperatures

you need to consider other risks.

Your equipment is more likely to malfunction and

your response time is much slower because the

cold numbs your extremities.

[Inka Cagnasso] Let’s do it!

- Do it!

[David Blaine] We want to get up in the air

as soon as we can because the clouds are

starting to come in.

The clouds cover distorts depth perception

which makes landing much more dangerous.

[Inka Cagnasso] Woo!

[David Blaine] At 12,000 feet, the temperatures will drop

to negative 40 degrees.

I've decided to jump in a T-shirt which will give

me more mobility.

[♪ uplifting music playing]

[Inka Cagnasso] It was so beautiful above the clouds.

I was having the time of my life.

David was smiling.

[Lauri Aapro] I have roughly 45 seconds in a free-fall to

capture Inka doing her magic.

But as I open my parachute I start having problems.

My goggles are getting fogged.

The clouds and snow are making it harder to see

how close I am to the ground.

Then when I start to flare my canopy,

my steering lines are tangled.

I realize that I'm coming in too fast.

[crash and scrape]

[Lauri groans]

[Inka Cagnasso] I saw him laying on the ground and

he was not moving for, like way too long.

[Lauri groans]

I started running.

And thanks, God, I saw him moving again.

I’ve lost a lot of friends in this sport and whenever

something like this happens it’s very triggering.

[David Blaine] Are you OK?

There are so many unknowns in this sport.

Your chute might not open.

You, your goggles might fog up.

Anything can happen.

- I suffered spinal fractures.

But I am also super grateful to walk away from it.

- There's a word in Finnish language

that's called sisu,

which would probably translate to something like

persistence or stubbornness.

Like you watch me. I’m going to get it done.

- The doctors asked me if I'm gonna fly again.

I said, yes, of course.

I just needed to take care of my mind first and

then build back my body.

[David Blaine] I was so concerned that he was never

going to fly again because of his broken back.

But in just a matter of months, he returned to the wind tunnel.

Lauri is an incredible example of

perseverance and determination.

-Sisu is a mindset, having to survive in harsh weather.

Yeah, it toughens you up.

[David Blaine] Christian is a great magician that I’ve

collaborated with for decades.

He’s invited me to Helsinki to see some incredible acts

that you can only find here.

[♪ band music playing]

[Christian Engblom] There's only light,

a few hours per day during the winter.

So it allows your creativity to flourish and come up

with new ideas.

- One, two, three, four!

[♪ upbeat music playing]

[Christian Engblom] I'm taking David to see a

performance taking place on circular plates of

ice spinning on top of the frozen Baltic Sea.

It's called an ice carousel.

So if someone were to ask me what would be unique

about Finnish magic.

These guys.

[♪ upbeat music playing]

[applause]

This is Salla.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

- I feel very alive when I'm up there.

And I feel like the audience is with me.

I want the audience to actually forget the freezing cold.

[Christian Engblom] Salla isn’t just an aerialist;

she is also one of the best female ice divers.

[David Blaine] When Salla unexpectedly drops through the

ice, you can feel the energy of the crowd shift.

It's as if the audience is now holding their breath

along with her.

It's what made my favorite magician, Harry Houdini,

so captivating.

[applause and cheers]

Hi!

- Hi, nice to meet you, David.

- Nice to meet... That was amazing!

- Thank you!

[announcer] He is fighting it, he is fighting it.

[David Blaine] When I attempted the world record

for breathholding, I started blacking out and

my safety team had to intervene and rescue me.

Just like they had to when I was encased in a block of ice.

Watching Salla combine breathholding and

cold endurance, I want to see what else she can do.

So she's taking me to a training camp to introduce

me to her team.

- So what we have here today is we have the depth ropes

so they can dive down.

[David Blaine] Free diving is one of the riskiest underwater

sports where you dive without any breathing apparatus.

But under the ice, it's exponentially more dangerous.

If you are in 60-degree water,

you can hold your breath no problem.

Four minutes five minutes each time.

But when you are in the Arctic and it's below zero,

it's very easy to blackout.

A wetsuits gives you insulation and significantly

prolongs the amount of time that you can spend underwater.

Where else do they even do this kind of ice diving?

There can't be that many places in the world.

- No there aren’t really many.

[David Blaine] Miro and Salla see free diving as

much more than a sport.

- We have basically an underwater floor

flipped upside down.

- Oh right. I didn’t even think of that.

You have a surface here.

- We can definitely show you some of that.

- We can show you. Alright?

- Yep. - Ten seconds.

- Okay.

[♪ tranquil music playing]

- That looks amazing.

Miro and Salla's performance is dreamlike.

But it's most people's nightmare.

To be trapped under ice with no way out.

- Here the ice is one meter thick.

So there is no way out if you don’t find the hole.

You get lost once, you get lost forever.

- Being trapped under ice is one of the greatest nightmares.

- How do you feel about it? - Well, for me, I'm excited.

[laughter]

[wind gusts]

[David Blaine] I want to try something I've never done,

holding my breath while under the ice.

So we're headed 600 miles north to a training ground in

the Arctic Circle.

- It will be nice to go under for you to see what is,

what it’s like down there, and how it feels.

[David Blaine] I want to go under the ice in the

most extreme way possible.

- At first, you're gonna go with the wetsuit?

- What fun is a wet suit!

- It’s up to you man.

[David Blaine] But they’ve convinced me to wear a mask

because exposing your eyes to these temperatures

is very painful.

[Miro Suonpera] We have the 3-meter cable which

goes around your waist and we have 3-meter radius

around the rope.

[David Blaine] So what’s the line for?

[Salla Hakanpaa] You should be wearing the lanyard.

Something happens to you, you can lose your grip.

- Anything can happen even though the distance is small.

Anything can happen actually.

- There are really no room for mistakes when

you are ice diving.

This afternoon is about finding David’s limits.

What we want to see is how he reacts.

Is he panicking?

[David Blaine] Yes, it's extremely cold and

the environment is extremely hostile.

But it's so beautiful.

Wow, wow, that's [bleep] amazing!

In order to do multiple dives without going into hypothermia,

you need intense heat to bring your core temperature up.

That is why the sauna is so critical to this process.

The sauna was actually created in Finland

more than 1,000 years ago and it's a key safety

component for this extreme sport.

As soon as I leave the sauna I have limited time.

The team created a safety track 27 feet long

with two exit points.

I'll train to dive from one opening to the next

without a wetsuit.

- As you are going along by pulling the rope.

You want to take as long strokes as possible.

- OK.

- So reach the rope as far you can.

Pull as slow as you can.

- OK.

- You take the same breathing techniques as you do before.

- I'll do three first. - Yeah.

- OK.

They're teaching me how to conserve oxygen while pulling

my body because with every single movement,

I'm quickly depleting my reserves.

- The body uses an enormous amount of energy.

So the further the coldness, sort of, gets in...

...the sooner you get really tired and

it reduces the breath hold time.

[David Blaine] Once I understood that I

could do this length, then I said, okay,

well wait, can we double it?

Okay, can we triple it?

[Miro Suonpera] One good thing to measure that is the,

is the feelings inside of your,

uh, body and brain.

If you lose your focus for just, just a few seconds,

you may get disorientated and you may not know

that way to go.

So that's the reason why it's important to stay

focused under there.

A few years back there was a world record set on

106 meters in ice diving.

I wanted to break that record.

I knew that that dive is going to be very,

very close to my limits.

And I knew that it could be even over, over my limits.

There was some marks like 25 meters,

50 meters, 75.

87 is the last mark I remember.

[Tommi Pasanen] I saw him slow down.

And there was a bubble coming out of his mouth,

which means that he was blacking out.

I, I started realizing that, okay,

maybe I will have to catch him and bring him up.

[overlapping Finnish chatter]

[Miro Suonpera] The next thing I remember,

I woke up and they were shouting me to breathe.

[David Blaine] There's a big difference to holding your

breath the way I’ve done it my entire life versus

holding it while under ice.

Everything can shut down quickly and you can

black out within seconds.

- It was intense and because it was a certain distance

he, he tried.

You will let him try till the very end that he can.

So at the last minute of course we bring him up.

You always trust your life to your friends like.

- Yeah. - It’s in their hands eventually.

[David Blaine] As I train the exits continuously freeze over

and the team has to keep re-cutting the holes.

You cut through this?

- Two hours ago.

- And it’s already frozen over that quick?

- Yeah.

[David Blaine] What Miro says gives me an idea.

When I was in the block of ice,

my safety team had to cut me out.

Now my goal is to escape on my own.

I'll free dive 90 feet across to the only exit point

which will be frozen solid.

And this time I'll do it without wearing a mask.

I'll be trapped under the ice and will be forced to

break my way out.

When you're under the ice,

trying to break through this is much more difficult.

Yeah.

[Salla Hakanpaa] What’s sort of an extra factor in this

is that there’s no holes in between.

It’s deadly dangerous.

Especially when he’s not wearing any protective

gear or a mask.

[David Blaine] When I was in the block of ice I was 27.

I'm now 50 years old.

My body is completely different.

Every single thing that I do I feel the effects of it

in a way that I've never felt before.

The distance is 3 times what I did in training.

I need to conserve every bit of oxygen so I have enough

reserves to be able to break out before I black out.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[faint ticking]

[underwater thuds]

[underwater thuds]

[ice cracking]

[underwater thuds]

[ice cracking]

Whatever failures I experienced from past stunts,

maybe they weren't failures,

maybe they were supposed to be because

it all led me here.

You guys are amazing!

Meeting these extraordinary people.

Who through their strength and persistence create magic!

Who seek out the most intense moments.

To find a heightened sense of awareness.

Where everything becomes clear.

When something's that challenging or that powerful,

there are no more distractions,

and through that, you can discover the

beauty around you.

[♪ upbeat music playing]

[♪ upbeat music playing]