Like watching top notch aerial trapeze artists or gifted dancers, beholding the world's best surfers riding momentous 20 to 60 foot waves is a thoroughly entertaining, at times mesmerizing experience. The young masters of this sport display consummate athleticism, not to mention courage, abandon, an ultimate level in the pursuit of thrills, rivaled perhaps only by the most difficult reaches of alpine skiing. In this film, Brown extends the tradition initiated 37 years ago by his father, Bruce Brown, who made the first great surfer film, "The Endless Summer," released in 1966.
There are interesting contrasts between the two movies. "Endless Summer" was a simple, lyrical ode to the pleasures of youth, following two young amateur surfers as they sought the adventure of new surfs at beaches around the world. A road movie propelled by waves. The music was soft and easy and had continuity, and Brown pere's narration was full of adolescent good humor. "Liquid" is more complex in several senses. It's structure is one of brief separate surfing stories, and it features a larger number of surfers, several of them seasoned pros. It is a more political film as well, setting two of its stories in Vietnam and Ireland, where, Brown suggests, teaching some kids to surf may help right the world's wrongs. It is definitely more techie. Surfers launch into the biggest waves in Hawaii and on the Cortez Bank after being towed into position by large jet ski rigs, analogous to helicopter skiing. Some surfers use a most peculiar hydrofoil board contraption, the stability of which defies simple logic. Technical achievements in filming abound as well. The film also puts a face on danger, featuring in one episode a young man rendered quadriplegic by a surfing accident.
Professionalization, politics, technology, danger. Clear and present overtones in the culture of our times. It follows that, overall, the biggest contrast between the films lies in the seriousness of "Liquid." For all of its narrative allusions to pure fun as the main goal of a surfer's life, and occasional antics that amuse (surfing in Sheboygan, Michigan for one), there is a pervasive earnestness in the stories. Simple fun in 2003 is harder to purchase than it was in flower child times. We are now less innocent. Still, if you liked the original (I have seen it at least three times), you will find this one absorbing as well. What's really fun is to see it in a theater like I did, surrounded by aging (former?) surfers whose laughter helps balance the film's somewhat somber tone.
There are interesting contrasts between the two movies. "Endless Summer" was a simple, lyrical ode to the pleasures of youth, following two young amateur surfers as they sought the adventure of new surfs at beaches around the world. A road movie propelled by waves. The music was soft and easy and had continuity, and Brown pere's narration was full of adolescent good humor. "Liquid" is more complex in several senses. It's structure is one of brief separate surfing stories, and it features a larger number of surfers, several of them seasoned pros. It is a more political film as well, setting two of its stories in Vietnam and Ireland, where, Brown suggests, teaching some kids to surf may help right the world's wrongs. It is definitely more techie. Surfers launch into the biggest waves in Hawaii and on the Cortez Bank after being towed into position by large jet ski rigs, analogous to helicopter skiing. Some surfers use a most peculiar hydrofoil board contraption, the stability of which defies simple logic. Technical achievements in filming abound as well. The film also puts a face on danger, featuring in one episode a young man rendered quadriplegic by a surfing accident.
Professionalization, politics, technology, danger. Clear and present overtones in the culture of our times. It follows that, overall, the biggest contrast between the films lies in the seriousness of "Liquid." For all of its narrative allusions to pure fun as the main goal of a surfer's life, and occasional antics that amuse (surfing in Sheboygan, Michigan for one), there is a pervasive earnestness in the stories. Simple fun in 2003 is harder to purchase than it was in flower child times. We are now less innocent. Still, if you liked the original (I have seen it at least three times), you will find this one absorbing as well. What's really fun is to see it in a theater like I did, surrounded by aging (former?) surfers whose laughter helps balance the film's somewhat somber tone.