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World surfing star Kelly Slater heads for the water in Waveriders |
These super surfers, they’re just not on our wavelength
WAVERIDERS
Directed by Joel Conroy
Certificate PG
SURFERS should be seen and not heard. While they are all chiselled and toned, frolicking seductively in the waves, as soon as the bunch of beach dudes that feature in this documentary open their gobs and start attempting to explain their unique kind of surfy-life philosophy, things go utterly awry.
Waveriders is a strange film. It supposedly tells the story of surfing off the west coast of Ireland, yet is so disjointed, this fact gets lost in the utter nonsense coming out of the main characters’ mouths.
It does, admittedly, have two things going for it: there’s lots of glorious footage of amazing waves carrying little chaps on boards to the beaches, and a short, potted history of the life and times of a man called George Freeth.
This is far and away the best segment of the film. Freeth was of Irish descent. He went to Hawaii at the end of the 1800s, saw people surfing and decided it was something he would rather enjoy.
He met the author Jack London, introduced him to surfing, and then took the idea to California. Freeth went on to invent the concept of lifeguards and was a Pacific coast hero not only for bringing surf to America, but for his many acts of derring-do on the beaches, saving the lives of fishermen and the like on a regular basis.
His story leaps out of the water, and is bookended by his tragically early death, aged 35, from the flu epidemic that followed the end of the First World War.
After whistling through the history of surfing, we are treated to lots of tanned blokes in warm clothing and sunglasses saying how totally awesome their friends are at catching waves, and how though the water may be a tad nippy in Ireland, the swell is massive and you haven’t lived at all till you’ve caught it.
The upside is the footage and the story of Freeth; I have to admit as I left the cinema I was struck by an urge to head to the South coast.
But otherwise, this film would have been improved if you could have turned the sound down. |
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