Dir. Joel Conroy, Ireland, 2008, 79 mins, documentary
Narrated Cillian Murphy
Review by Richard Mellor
The greatest compliment to pay Waveriders is that it makes you yearn to surf, and to surf in Ireland at that. For a documentary predominantly about Irish surfing, that's pretty good going. Its director, Joel Conroy, manages to translate not only the escapist appeal of the pursuit, but also the community and rugged beauty that accompanies it in Ireland, a surf destination more than mere miles away from the sun and sea of Hawaii or California.
All that's eventually true, anyway. For its opening ten minutes, the film seems little but an extended surfing advert from the Irish tourist board. Cillian Murphy narrates and, beautiful as the actor's voice is, even he can make you sleepy when jabbering on about "limestone coastlines" and "the oicy waters off the coast of Oireland " in his exaggerated brogue.
Suddenly though, almost without warning, Waveriders hits it stride. Jumping back in time, it spends half an hour humbly reflecting on Ireland 's pivotal role in surfing history. It tells of George Freeth, an Irish-Hawaiian who alerted the world to the outlandish notion of riding waves before almost single-handedly inventing lifeguards in one heroic rescue (nicely recreated here), and Kevin Naughton, the Irish-American journalist who stumbled on the idea of surf travel, making his living from writing about it.
It's a touchingly devout section, particularly when Arthur Verge, a Freeth historian, weeps when recalling the waterman's impact on his own life. Naughton too makes for a compelling interviewee, accurately labelling himself “a bit of an odd duck”. Their wistful respect for the good old days is rather cheering in its sincerity.
There follows more talk of pioneer spirits, plus some dainty archive footage, and then we're back on the Emerald Isle, examining why Ireland's has become the hottest new surf spot. Everything thereafter is poetic and cosy, with quotes from WB Yeats and Irish town names like Bundoran and Aileens rolling evocatively off Murphy's tongue. Modern surfing icons like the Malloy Bros and Kelly Slater pay tribute to Ireland 's giant waves alongside local legends Richard Fitzgerald and Gabe Davies.
Conroy has little form. His only previous directorial effort was also boarding-based: an unheralded TV feature, Eye of the Storm , also featuring Fitzgerald and Davies. And in many ways Waveriders is just another surfing documentary, like the recent Riding Giants — one littered with montages, where wet-suited wonders dance slow-mo through impossibly small chutes and huge swells, to the tune of rock anthems like The Undertones' Teenage Kicks . That said, Daniel Trapp's cinematography is terrific, with underwater shots, captures of birds circling the cliffs and close-ups that really suggest the exhilaration of riding waves.
But Waveriders really excels thanks to the ways it differs from other surf docs, in its more human, accessible elements. Slater aside, the interviewees seem nice normal people, enchanting in their dizzying enthusiasm for boarding. They might use impenetrable jargon, but they're still recognisable — witness the healthy-bellied Naughton wobbling across Bundoran beach, while wrestling with his cloying wetsuit, or the Malloys' excitement at the sight of Irish cattle. The inclusion of their humdrum downtime, in surf shops and jeeps, makes empathy very easy.
That is, until a radio crackles up with a severe weather warning, informing Fitzgerald and Davies of 100km/hour winds and 14-metre waves. When most of us would be battening down hatches at such news, Fitzgerald is excitedly babbling. “It's huge, it's huge,” he says. “Big, dangerous, nasty waves.” It's impossible to tell if he's more anxious or gleeful. The pair race to Mullaghmore for the gargantuan breaks and the film concludes with stunning footage, amazingly and atmospherically recorded on the final day of filming, of them negotiating the monstrous swells they've been so long pining for.
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