However, when the camp is seized by the authorities, Boyum torches it and heads seaward, with a few others in tow, on a tour of surfing discovery, shipwreck salvage and drug smuggling. The footage from those days, featuring the likes of Jerry Lopez and Peter Mccabe is just magical and for a while, everything seems to be going swimmingly. Among them is the infamous Mike Boyum who invites the rest of the crew, comprised of commercial divers and soon to be surf execs, to his newly established land camp at G-Land. The film centres on a small group of Americans and Aussies in the mid-70s, who’ve all found their way to the wilds of Indo for one reason or another.
#Family surf school documentary archive#
However, thanks to him, the outsiders and the Hawaiian’s eventually unite to pave the way for the first incarnation of a world surf circuit and it all ends on a big cuddle and a handshake.Ĭome for the excellent archive footage of MR and the boys charging on leashless single fins, and stay for the decade-old John John Florence cameo.Īfter a short but glorious run at international film festivals, Sea Of Darkness disappeared from circulation, depriving the wider world of what many consider to be the greatest surf documentary ever made.
Were it not for the benevolence of the much revered Eddie Aikau, this story could have had a very different ending. The film follows a group of young Australian and South African surfers as they cut their teeth on the North Shore in the mid 70’s, scoring iconic photos, clips and mag features and royally pissing off the local Hawaiians with their impertinence (except for MR- the Hawaiin’s loved MR.) The documentary offers a window into a Hawaii that many claims has ceased to exist, where actions- and particularly those with imperial undertones- have serious and usually violent, consequences. Sitting, in many ways, at the complete opposite end of the surfing spectrum to the joy-filled Endless Summer, Busting Down The Door exposes the far grittier side of late 20th-century surfing.
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