Film Review: 'Waveriders' (2008)

'Waveriders' is a documentary by Joel Conroy about surfboarding. And is exactly as thrilling as it sounds. To be fair, if you're into surfing then it probably holds more interest for you. But for non-surfers, it's, well, people riding up waves. Over and over again.

Some backstory as to why I watched this? Well, I've been a minor fan of extreme sports since I started playing the 'Tony Hawk's' video game series, way back when. Skateboarding was always my primary interest (if you need proof as to why skateboarding is awesome, YouTube search Rodney Mullen), I was just never huge into it because I can't skate for shit. Other extreme sports (BMXing, motocross, etc.) were also interesting to me, quite probably because I know that it's some crazy stuff I could never do. But surfboarding never hugely appealed. There's a person, a board and waves. And that's about it. Not loads of convenient ramps and rails and jumps to trick off of. Just a person, a board, and some waves.

So, I watched this documentary as an attempt to, not necessarily get into surfing, but to at least see what the fuss was about. As it is, I couldn't see it. The documentary is very well made, filled with tight editing, lush ambient music, and some truly gorgeous photography. Perhaps it occasionally follows some classic documentary clichés too far, such as unnecessary overexposed filters over scenes for no good reason. But hey, it's a staple of the genre, and technically speaking, this film is solid. The primary focus of the film is, oddly enough, the surfing scene in Wales (although it occasionally, and wisely, thematically speaking, moves away from this particular subculture), so we get some beautiful locations. Huge cliffs loom over the dark waters and the surfers do what they do best, which is to rip some gnarly barrels (non-extreme sport fans beware; the film occasionally features some lingo of the scene, which may leave you bewildered as to what they, and I, just said).

The most interesting part of the film is it's brief history of surfboarding, which in it's extreme sports form was pioneered by George Freeth, Jr - the man who also, apparently, invented modern lifeguarding as we know it. There is also some focus on the pros of the sport, and, of course, a couple of talking heads, all narrated by Cillian Murphy. But it's hard to feel as passionate as the featured characters do for a sport which, visually, looks only interesting the first few times you see it. The film runs at a mere one hour twenty minutes, yet feels much longer, due to the repetitive nature of seeing someone carve a board up and down a wave ad nauseum. You admire the passion behind the film, but it's just far too thin a topic to spread to feature length, and as such would have worked far better as perhaps a half-hour TV special, or perhaps to have had more focus on surfing's impact globally.

Overall: Technically solid, but just not all that interesting.

2/5