Yes, I am referring to the legendary 1966 surfing documentary:
A light and airy documentary that nonetheless has great vibes, brah.
Yet again this is another revisit for me, although the only other viewing was more than 15 years ago. The free status on Prime Video was enough of a push for me to discuss the movie here. A product of Bruce Brown, he filmed a pair of surfers (Robert August, Mike Hynson) as they traveled around the world to catch some gnarly waves; a lot of time was spent in the Southern Hemisphere so thus it was an Endless Summer for them.
There was no audio recorded on the cameras; instead, surf music, other instrumentals and for a few minutes while they were in Senegal, music from Babatunde Olatunji, a Nigerian drummer who introduced Afrobeat to Americans with his album Drums of Passion in 1959. One of the songs heard was Jin-go-lo-ba; yeah, the song that Santana later did as Jingo which was also a rad disco song from Candido in 1979. There’s constant narration from Brown which might rankle some people if you find the patter to be annoying.
Personally, it was silly and breezy so I did not take offense… except for some extremely dated ideals concerning villagers in Senegal. Of course some moments were staged or not exactly as presented; however, the movie did portray those Black people as being extremely primitive and ignorant of the modern world. Sure, it was nice to see them be taught the basics of surfing then attempt it themselves… the worst stereotypes are still rather regrettable.
Even with those moments, I still had as much fun with this documentary as I did that initial time oh so long ago. Exotic locations across the globe are shown and it was simply relaxing for me to view the quaint sight of men in swimming trunks surf waves on longboards; how things have changed in the past 50 years plus.
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