Six fearless surfers travel to the north coast of Iceland to ride waves unlike anything they've ever experienced, captured with high-tech cameras.
The following is for
Foler
This is a
decent looking film. That's about all I can really say.
I can't call it a documentary because it doesn't really document...well anything. It's 6 guys (who you never get to know at all) going to Iceland to surf. If you follow surfing you will know some of the names and if you are an avid follower of the Icelandic fishing industry, you might know a few of the places they go based on the quick shots of a random map or two they show. But if you're not a follower of either of those things, well...fuck you because this film isn't giving you any of that information now sit down and watch some guys drive through snow.
What it DOES give you is 2001 style skateboard video cuts and a TON of 2011 style "establishing shots" that don't actually lead into any kind of narrative. You get a bunch of "dude-bros" (again who you never get to know) doing some dude-bro stuff and then the filmmaker talking about how cool it would be to get a shot of dude-bros surfing with the northern lights behind them.
Cool.
Don't get me wrong here, I could be classified as a "dude-bro" and I love my dude-bro's. But you need to KNOW the dude-bro and not just show him popping a beer and tossing his blond locks back.
What this film needed was about 10 less minutes of people clearing ice from windshields and 50 more minutes of WHO they are, WHERE they are and WHY the fuck are they doing this. And at the end, when you get to the BIG CLIMAX shots, it's all 1km away with over saturated lighting mixed with CGI "oooooo aurora borealis graphics". This film is what happens when a sports photographer decides to "tell a story" while just applying his photography skills.
I learned to surf on the Atlantic Florida coast and Gulf. I surf now in SoCal and Hawaii. Thanks to this film I have ZERO desire to be even slightly interested in why you would want to surf in Iceland and that was the entire central premise of the film.
But hey, it has some decent cinematography.