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Blue Crush
***
Cinema
Reviews - Week of April 4, 2003
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 12A. USA.
104 minutes. Directed by John Stockwell. Written by John Stockwell, Lizzy
Weiss; from a story by Weiss; based on the magazine article "Surf Girls of
Maui" by Susan Orlean. Starring Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez, Sanoe
Lake, Matthew Davis, Mika Boorem, Chris Taloa, Kala Alexander, Ruben Tejada,
Kaupena Miranda, Asa Aquino, Faizon Love, George Veikoso, Shaun
Robinson.
Surfing is one of those pursuits, it seems, where
once you get into it you never go back. Being a surfer becomes part of your
identity -- it's as addictive as golf or skiing, except you can spend your
whole life around the beach community, while golfers tend to go when they're
not working or sleeping and most skiers have to take holidays and get themselves
to resorts. And surfing is obviously cooler, because you've got decent fashions
to go with it, and lots of pretty people in swimwear, and you're on the beach
instead of endless hills or some cold-ass mountain range.
I find myself fascinated by surfing, partly because
it is an attractive-looking pastime, and also because I am resigned to the
knowledge that I will never be able to surf myself. Folks, I just don't have
the balance. Or stamina. Or wetsuit. But what I can live with is a movie
like "Blue Crush", which is about a bunch of girls who live
for the beach, and is filmed in a way that understands and communicates the
way its spaces feel.
Have you seen the poster for the film? It looks
cheesy. The three young women pose abruptly in front of a simplistic summer
background, wearing very little and displaying the plasticky skin sheen of
Barbie dolls. One's eyebrow is raised so high by that poster, and one is
so tempted to dismissively laugh, that the experience of watching the movie
almost feels like checking that it's good instead of being fully
absorbed.
But a few hours after leaving the cinema, sitting
in the Old Monk and finding that one of the TV screens was broadcasting an
MTV surfing programme, I found myself staring knowingly at the curls of waves
and the moves of those inside them, and realised just how wrapped up I had
been in the imagery of "Blue Crush". Surfing is not a particularly complex
thing to figure out from the outside, but here the photography and editing
do well to demonstrate the beauty of how it all looks while moving with a
momentum that wraps us up in the physical drama. There are some sensational
camera positions, from tricky point-of-view shots to lenses being plonked
right in front of surfers' faces, and we go under them, tumble right along
with their capsizing boards, and, well, you name it. More engaging than any
of that are the gorgeous framings of characters riding through majestically
large crests, as the water slowly forms and does its thing. Surfer movies,
even the good ones, have tended to try and illustrate the obsessive allure
of the sport with guys telling us what it all means to them, and giving us
stoner philosophy. Sincere, maybe, but not as effective as leaving it up
to images to do all the talking.
The main characters here -- played by Kate Bosworth,
Michelle Rodriguez and Sanoe Lake -- are too busy to sit around having long
conversations about the rush. They just live the life, and to support it,
have to work crummy jobs as underpaid hotel maids. "Blue Crush" has a sense
of how real commitments surround going to the beach, which makes for decent
drama in itself, and creates a contrast with the scenes of the sea -- we
can sense the freedom that it offers, and don't need to be told about
it.
The story is about Bosworth training for a tough
surf competition while falling in love with a vacationing football player
and threatening to lose sight of her commitments. It's pretty conventional
sports movie stuff, and the scars of Bosworth's past and decisions she has
to confront could all be seen on the way in. The movie doesn't, however,
hammer its points home, or strain for sentimentality, or feel the need to
have an awkwardly convenient solution to the subplot about Bosworth's rebellious
younger sister. It creates an atmosphere skilfully, and the leads look like
surfers -- not outrageously sporty, but healthy and toned, and taken over
by perceptible degrees of serenity every time they get close to the
water.
COPYRIGHT©
2003 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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