Slowly coming out of my illness cocoon. One of the high points about getting sick is that all I could for for about 36 hours was lie there and watch surf movies. So now I have a slew of reviews for you. Up first – Chasing The Lotus: The Lost Reels of Weaver and Wills. Since the dawn of the modern surf film, Greg Weaver and Spyder Wills have always been seen as the underground filmmakers of surf. They documented surf discovery as it migrated around the globe. But they tended to operate on the fringe of the culture. They were more documentarians of the growth of surfing as a sport, culture and lifestyle rather than just straight up movie makers; almost like surfing anthropologists. From their guerrilla and secretive film shooting style we get timeless images for such films as The Forgotten Island of Santosha, Big Wednesday, Pacific Vibrations, and Uluwatu.
Chasing the Lotus is a cinematic journey inspired by many of the reels that were lost in the making of these films. Since that time, these reels have resurfaced and are now brought to light. A fusion of rare super 8mm film, photo stills and contemporary interviews blend together to make Chasing the Lotus the most in-depth look at surfing discovery ever made.
Chasing the Lotus is crazy entertaining. It is a great mix old timey 70s surf footage, cool interviews past and present and a sweet unfiltered look into the mindset of a lot of the surfers at the time.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InjPYRsyUVE[/youtube]