Surf movie: Self Discovery for social survival (2019)
Surfers – Musician – Destinations
Self Discovery for Social Survival – quite a mouthful, we can shorten it as director Chris Gentile suggests to SDSS – is a surf movie that combines the joys of riding a wave and the social aspect of surf culture. Inspired by soundtracks of some surf movie classics, the idea of director Chris Gentile of Pilgrim Surf + Supply was to create a symbiosis of music and surf footage around the world.
“I wish to step forward on my own. To face new peoples, new waves, new ideas: I wish to leave the guarded beaches of life, to catch rips in unknown waves.”
(A Surfer, quote, and screenshot taken from the movie Self Discovery for Social Survival, minute 2.34)
Surfers that can be seen in the movie are Stephanie Gilmore, Creed McTaggart, Ryan Burch, Jamie Brisick, Richard Kenvin, Devon Howard, CJ Nelson, Karina Rozunko, Corey Colapinto, Ellis Ericson, Beau Foster, Ari Browne, Andrew Kidman, Kassia Meador, Lee-Ann Curren and Heidar Logi.
Music & Surfing – a psychedelic experience
The music is created by Allah-Las, Connan Mockasin & Andrew VanWyngarden, and Peaking Lights. The whole soundtrack can be listened to at Mexican Summer. The musical experience of the movie can be described as electronic and at times psychedelic. It’s usually not Charlie’s cup of tea, but it is well-rounded and successfully transmits the right emotion with the images on screen.
For the movie, each of the three groups consisting of surfers and musicians went on a surf trip together. The surf imagery in the movie was taken during the trip. Upon their return home, the musicians took it away in the studio, inspired by the memories of the surf trip. The storyline in the movie however displays things the other way around. The viewer sees the musicians in their studio first and is then taken on the surf trip.
There isn’t much narration, the music and images rather speak for themselves. The little spoken word consists of quotes of those who have been on the trip and is narrated by Jonas Mekas who was a Lithuanian-American filmmaker and stands for the avant-garde cinema. He died shortly after recording the narrative for Self Discovery for Social Survival in January 2019. The director Chris Gentile highly recommends watching the films by Jonas Mekas.
The 3 Stops
When we say 3 surf destinations, chances are good that you’re thinking Hawaii, Australia, and California, but in this case, the producers have chosen destinations that are not a surprise as we know that you can surf there, but wouldn’t immediately cross our minds: Mexico, the Maldives and Iceland.
Given those surf destinations, the movie creates three completely different experiences by starting in a long-board heaven on the Mexican Pacific Coast, scoring perfect barrels on a short-board in what we would call paradise, the Maldives, and cold-water surfing in Iceland. Those are three different types of surfing, but they all transmit the true vibes of surf culture.
The production brought surfers and musicians to jaw-dropping locations around the world that all have their own secrets and beauty to reveal. For the trip, the team had chosen two weeks that they would spend there. Similar to the surf movie Here & Now, they wouldn’t know what they’d get and were fully at the mercy of nature. As the result shows, they scored some really good waves in all three destinations.
Mexico
The first part of the movie starts in a recording studio in Topanga Canyon in California. You can see the musicians of Allah-Las at work. A map comes into view and the trip to Mexico, to the waves in the Pacific Ocean, starts.
“In Mexico, they say the Pacific has no memory and that was exactly what it felt like. In the water, on a wave, there is no past and no future, no status symbols, no socio-economic markers. In the water, we are water.” (Quote taken from the movie Self Discovery for Social Survival, minute 7)
The next approximately 15 minutes are filled with images of clear blue skies, empty sea, and empty line-ups. It displays the destination as a heaven for long-boarding and you can see impressive skills of surfers walking up and down the board in almost artistic ways.
The Maldives
Taken back to the studio after an amazing trip to Mexico, you are now in a music studio in El Sereno, California, listening to Peaking Lights.
This time, the journey around the world drawn on the map brings you to the Maldives. It is the second surf destination in the movie and the second ocean providing waves to score the Indian Ocean. For the next 15 minutes, the images show the paradise with perfect barrels, white sandy beaches, and palm trees. The group goes around on different boats, jumping off the back directly in the waves (similar to the experience at the Isla de Lobos in Charlie’s favourite surf destination Fuerteventura), and dry their clothes on a fishing cutter.
Iceland
The third part of the movie Self Discovery for Social Survival starts in Brooklyn, New York in a studio with Connan Mockasin & Andrew Vanwyngarden before taking off to the cold Northern sphere of Iceland.
“The best maps are the ones drawn on cocktail napkins just before closing time. And we were following exactly that: the work of a fisherman named Jacob.” (Quote taken from the movie Self Discovery for Social Survival, minute 36)
This location completely changes the setting. They change from board shorts to thick wetsuits. The landscape is the exact opposite of the previous scenes. Instead of blue sea and white beaches, the viewer is now taken into mountainous landscapes and the beauty of Northern scenery. You can see wide open roads, mountains with and without snow, and jetties by the sea. The movie completely does it justice. Those landscapes also make the viewer realize how small we humans are compared to that jaw-dropping nature.
The beauty of life
Self Discovery for Social Survival is the perfect symbiosis of all the things that make life worth living: surfing, music, stunning nature and people to socialise with.
You can see different landscapes from white sandy beaches in hot summer destinations to mountains up in colder climates, different types of surfing at various times of the day from sunrise to sunset, and a lot of smiling faces getting together. The music produced for the film rounds it all up.
The movie ends with the surfers admiring the Northern Lights and as such, is a documentation of the most beautiful parts of the world and the wonders it holds for us.
