Top professional Cornish surfers Mark ‘Igor’ Harris and Mitch Corbett
are on a mission, a mission to discover the roots of surfing in the UK. Along
the way they meet the iconic locals who went on to become legends and get to
grips with what makes British surfing so special. The product of this journey
is ‘The Endless Winter’, and what a
journey it is.
“We wanted to make a film that British surfers could be proud of,” says
producer Matt Crocker who, along with James Dean, is responsible for the
movie. And that they have done. The film
is both interesting and informative, avoiding the Cornwall-heavy bias of many
British surf films by including many spots such as the Gower, Brighton and
Thurso East.
The film’s tagline is ‘A very British surf movie’, and it certainly goes
to fill a gap in a market oversaturated with footage of warm water barrels in
exotic locations. British surfing has evolved on its own terms and in its own
time and the resulting eccentric characters and hardcore surfing community is
covered well.
Igor and Mitch come across as genuinely nice guys and connect well with
those they are interviewing, such as surfing icons Pete ‘PJ’ Jones, Spencer Hargraves and Nigel Semmens. They reveal what UK
surfing was like at its birth, such as the ridiculousness of surfing in a
woolly jumper in January, whilst tackling more sensitive issues, such as the
suicide of promising young surfer Nigel Veitch who dived off the cliffs at
Tynemouth after losing his sponsor. The story is handled well and goes to show
that getting British surfers on the map, not to mention the rankings, was not
all plain sailing.
It’s had a positive reception, it won Best British Film at the 2012
London Surf/Film Festival and enjoyed outdoor premiers all over the UK. The soundtrack isn’t bad either; featuring
the obvious, but still good, Devonshire surfer Ben Howard as well as others,
such as The Fairport Convention and the imaginatively named Hotel Flamingo (I’d
never heard of them either). It also includes black and white film footage as
well as animations, courtesy of Simon Ball.
But there are problems. The in-water footage leaves a lot to desired,
it’s shaky and unsteady and a couple of times during the Badlands section it
even gets jammed into the sand, leaving viewers with an invigorating few
seconds of Cornish seaweed. The film could have also done with some more
footage of women surfers and groms, of which Britain has many, and excellent
ones at that.
However, my main bugbear is that the production team are not surfers.
Let me reiterate that, these guys don’t surf. In fact, in ‘The Making Of’
section, they admit that they found it hard when filming to anticipate the
surfers’ next move on the wave, their lack of knowledge being so. It seems
strange to have outsiders documenting and commenting on a community which is so
notoriously insular and close-knit. Those of us who were not lucky enough to
grow up surfing know how intimidating it can be at the beginning– the language,
rules, hierarchy, etiquette, not to mention the sometimes aggressive localism.
The well-worn idiom of ‘Only a surfer knows the feeling’ seems to be tested by
this DVD.
But they do make any effort to stick to just the main spots and don’t
reveal any that viewers wouldn’t know about already. I wonder how much of that
decision was based on the surfers’ code rather than the risk of getting their
windscreen waxed or face the backlash from revealing a secret spot. Plus, when
they approached and met the featured local surfers, who are legends in the
surfing world, I wonder if they had the same deep-set respect and admiration
that a surfer would have.
On the flip side, it means that even those who are not surfers can
understand, appreciate and be inspired by the film. And along with the 30
minutes of extras, the film is definitely worth a watch. It really does
encapsulate what makes British surfing unique, the history and evolution
surfing in the UK, and the fact that the never ending search for the perfect
wave has been with us from the very beginning.
The Endless Winter trailer
