Searching for the soul of the wave

S.J. Cahn

The first shot in the new movie “Billabong Odyssey” lasts nearly 30

seconds and announces this will not be a typical surf flick.

The camera begins underwater, from the perspective of the surfer,

and then takes 10 seconds to get to the wave. And it is a wave that

just keeps building and building, for another 20 seconds, engulfing

the screen before it begins to break behind the rider -- in this

case, famed big-wave charger Mike Parsons.

In contrast, most surf films pick up a ride mid-wave, follow it

for a few moves and then jump to the next.

This opening scene lingers where others don’t, with the

half-minute takeoff, always the crucial moment in the ride (think of

any great wipeouts, and they almost always happen as the surfer tries

to catch the wave). It shows the back-story to the ride, the lead-in

to what’s to come, and is a fitting way -- actually, a fairly

awe-inspiring way, given that it is one of the most beautiful and

dramatic close-ups of a huge wave captured on film -- to begin a

movie that focuses on the back-story of the surfers involved in the

Billabong Odyssey, a three-year project to seek out the world’s

biggest waves and ride them.

“We wanted to get inside the heads and inside the hearts of all

the guys and give a sense of what they’re going through,” said Bill

Sharp, a Newport Beach resident, the expedition’s project director

and the movie’s narrator.

Those guys include Santa Cruz surfers Shawn “Barney” Barron, Ken

“Skindog” Collins, Josh Loya and Darryl “Flea” Virostko; big-wave

pioneer Ken Bradshaw; multi-women’s world champion Layne Beachley and

water-safety trainer Brian Keaulana.

The stars, though, along with the waves, are Southern Californians

Brad Gerlach and Parsons, mostly, it would seem, because of their

close proximity to Sharp’s Newport Beach headquarters.

And behind it all is Sharp, whose opening voice-over hearkens back

to Bruce Brown’s in “Endless Summer.”

“It wasn’t a direct homage [to Brown], but that is an effective

way, an easy way, to solve your content problems,” Sharp said, adding

that he saw himself as much in Jacques Cousteau’s movie shoes as in

Brown’s. (He also noted: “I hate looking at myself. And I hate

listening to myself, though not as much as the first time.”)

It is the focus on the surfers involved that sets this movie apart

and in the style of the best surf films, including “Endless Summer,”

“Five Summer Stories” and “Morning of the Earth,” which all develop

the character of their stars and not just their cutbacks. After a few

minutes with them, these surfers come across as more than just

fearless adventurers: They are fallible, worried and, finally, human.

The action, if it can be called that, is as much out of the water

as in it, as the surfers go to safety training school with Keaulana

(who advises them, “Surfing is the easy part, surviving is the hard

part”), travel to Spain and then France to catch a swell and wonder

among themselves what awaits far out beyond sight before a contest at

a Maui spot known as “Jaws.”

Because the movie highlights the surfers and their quest, it is

not just for hard-core surfers. It tells the story of big-wave

riding, which has largely been made possible by the use of personal

watercraft to tow surfers into waves too big and too fast to catch by

paddling. It graphically illustrates the danger of 30-second

hold-downs and waves that can drag a surfer 150 yards underwater. It

also offers glimpses at where this branch of the sport may be headed.

Just how broad the appeal is will be seen when “Billabong Odyssey”

is released at 20 to 25 select theaters on the West and East coasts

and on Hawaii on Nov. 7. International releases are also planned, and

the movie will debut on DVD in January, said Graham Stapelberg, vice

president of marketing for Billabong USA.

But before then, Billabong and the movie’s producers hope the

movie will expand nationwide, Stapelberg added.

There is a certain realism to the hope, though.

“I’ve come to accept that we won’t beat ‘The Matrix’ on the

opening weekend,” Sharp said.