Top ten surfing documentaries

 

I was sitting in some far-flung flea-pit makeshift movie theatre in a neo-pagan neighbourhood of Oahu, watching Johnny Boy Goes Mongo in Indo, featuring the exploits of local hardcore hellman Johnny Boy Gomes.

I was about to turn to a friend and utter some scathing remark when I happened to notice that Johnny Boy – of a fiery and volcanic temper in those days (and now the proud graduate of an intensive anger management course) – was in fact sitting in the row in front.

I like to think that it was not simple fear of the wrath of Gomes that caused me to reconsider and conclude that, in fact, the flick was not so bad after all. Although, I have to admit it doesn’t figure in my list (but Johnny Boy, if you’re reading this – your work is in a league of its own!).

Who was it that said that even with the most beautiful sunset in the history of the world, we can only stand watching it for about five minutes? Something similar applies to waves too, no matter how gnarly and cylindrical, unless there is something else going on. In my view, naked tubes have to be aesthetically justified.

The point about the films listed below is that (a) none of them includes a close encounter with Johnny Boy Gomes and (b) they don’t actually require you to drink yourself to a stupor – that remains strictly optional.

1. Riding Giants - Stacy Peralta (2004)

Stacy Peralta switches disciplines (or indisciplines) from skateboarding to surfing. His earlier films, like Dogtown and Z-boys, take place mostly in empty swimming pools around Los Angeles. In Riding Giants, he subtracts the wheels and adds water – and it’s huge: Waimea Bay, Mavericks, and Jaws. Plus primeval footage shot mainly by low-or-no-budget enthusiastic amateurs. Health warning: you have to really love watching Greg ‘da Bull’ Noll and Laird Hamilton.



2. Endless Summer - Bruce Brown (1966)

Bruce Brown’s video diary of a couple of Californian dudes trooping around the planet still feels like the genesis of the pleasure principle. Some of this film may now seem prehistoric, emitting a faint whiff of a surfing mission civilisatrice – with white (if deeply tanned) men trying to educate the natives. But for all its incorrectness, Endless Summer still drips with (as Blake would say) eternal delight.



3. Bra Boys - Sunny Abberton and Macario De Souza (2007)

Being more the nomadic loner type, I hate localism, i.e. the don’t-surf-in-our-backyard mentality. So, despite the Russell Crowe voiceover, I started out skeptical of the Maroubra gang known as the Bra Boys. At first sight, the Abberton brothers look like Australia’s answer to Johnny Boy Gomes. But the bad boys magically metamorphose from marauding maniacs to angels of multiculturalism. Could it have something to do with having an Abberton behind the camera as well as in front? Bra Boys twists the tale around from will-he-make-it-out-of-the-tube? to will-he-make-it-out-of-gaol? It’s a neat twist. I still may pass on Maroubra beach though.



4. Five Summer Stories - Greg MacGillivray  (1972)

Ask yourself one question. In what other film can you find Laird Hamilton aged 10 sliding down a sand dune; an overweight surfing superman getting stuck in a phone box trying to get his kit on; that almost forgotten mantra "cowabunga", intoned by Corky Carroll; a yearning voiceover stating that "Gerry Lopez’s relationship with the water is definitely sexual"; and, finally, Pretzel the skateboarding dog? Could anyone ask for more?



5. Singlefin: Yellow - Jason Baffa  (2003)

The adventures of a board. A West Coast mystic shaper called Tyler despatches his yellow longboard, bouncing it around the globe, from Japan to Australia to Hawaii. Funny how not one of the surfers seems in the least bit surprised by a yellow longboard turning up in the post. "What kind of soul had gone into it?" one of the more far-out surfers asks. Hanging ten x 100.



6. Stoked and Broke - Cyrus Sutton (2010)

Completely original work of genius. Almost the opposite of a surf movie. Nothing epic or heroic or transcendental – and yet still somehow awesome. Two charming post-industrial wastrels go on a surfari around the beaches of San Diego on "zero dollars". In effect begging (rather effectively) for alms and coming up with inspired ways of surviving while still surfing. Their favourite board is a scrap of bare foam. Dragging their stuff around on a couple of improvised carts, they bump into a stack of poignant and melancholy souls along the way. Plus great music.



7. Blue Horizon - Jack McCoy (2008)

A Jack McCoy film. McCoy, a lanky, laid-back Hawaiian based in Australia was raised on films like Endless Summer and used to hand out tickets and put up posters. Tubular Swells (1976) was his debut. He still has a habit of standing at the door and thanking everyone for coming. Blue Horizon, a quasi-Cain and Abel tale of opposing destinies, pits the late Andy Irons’ fierce competitor against Dave Rastovitz’s zen monk.



8. Odyssey (also titled Billabong Odyssey) - Philip Boston (2004)

Philip Boston from Yallingup tracks a crew of Billabong surfers scouring the world for the Loch Ness monster of surfing, the 100ft wave. Using jetskis still feels like cheating to me, but the Empire State-sized waves make everything else look like the Dunkin’ Donuts across the street.



9. Once Upon a Time in New York - Andy Martin and Norman Lomax (2011)

Short (less than five minutes). Weird, yes, but wonderful too. Made by Norman Lomax, Dominic Neitz and … me. OK call me prejudiced if you will, but I reckon this weaves together the metropolis, the beach, and Freud’s essay Civilization and its Discontents in a way that has rarely – if ever – been attempted before.

10. Stealing the Wave (201?)

Not yet made. Based on the classic book by Andy Martin. The quest for the perfect surf movie goes on.