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Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:EN-US;} I went and saw Drift on the weekend. I wasn’t going to, but a few trusted people had told me it was surprisingly good, so I thought I’d push through my reservations about the film and check it out. Let me show you why I wasn’t interested in going (from the director's Vimeo account);Based on true events, Drift is a story set on Australia's spectacular and rugged coastline in the early 1970s. It begins in a remote coastal town with the two Kelly brothers, who spend their youth searching for the perfect wave.Out of necessity the family launch a backyard surf business; re?thinking board design, crafting homemade wetsuits and selling their new surf gear out of their van.Battling killer waves, small town conservatism and hard-core criminals, the brothers persevere, daring to dream of a world where they can surf to live and live to surf.A story of passion and corruption, deadly addictions and fractured relationships, Drift tells a tale of courage and the will to survive at all odds. Drift Trailer #1 from world wide mind films from ben@world-wide-mind.com on Vimeo.See why I was nonplussed? My experiences with these kind of ficto-historical films is that they are high on big-waves, risk, mateship and clichés, and low on anything new or inclusive. I suppose I often leave feeling as though they are films for the boys. But I had been told this film was different, so I took myself off to my local cinema and sat in the afternoon showing – me, and about six middle-aged couples – and thoroughly enjoyed it.The film itself is really beautifully shot and the water sequences are great. Pretty spectacular actually. This isn’t a ‘surf film’, but is a mainstream movie, so the sequences had to be shot without making assumptions about how the viewers understand waves. And the effect of this was really great. When the main big wave sequence happened, a couple of women were gasping and commenting on the size of the waves. It was like an inner city, middle-class, non-surfing version of the hooting and hollering that happens when you go see surf films. I thought that was really cool. As for the story? Well, as you can see from the synopsis and as most of the other reviews of this film point out, plot wise there is not anything ground-breaking. The story is pretty predictable and the characters often conform to established Australian tropes, but it avoids falling into the usual clichés by giving the characters a little more depth than usual, and by not falling into the usual trap of representing Australia’s surfing past in the same ways as surfing histories usually do. I mean, first of all this is a film set on the west coast of Australia, far from the Nat Young, Bob McTavish and Rabbit stories. This film locates innovation in surfing as emerging in a time and place that lies far from the self-proclaimed ’definitive’ story we hear over and over about innovation in board design and surfing style.* It doesn’t claim ownership over these innovations, but instead suggests this story is part of a bigger movement happening at the time.This p
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