Thomas Campbell Aquatic Simulacra
Thomas Campbell’s new film, The Present, closes the gap between celluloid and the surfing experience.
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There is a music to Thomas Campbell's films. It's not just that music is the binding element, the thread that weaves the scenes together. The work is layered, cut upon cut, image upon image, so that the texture combines with the sounds to make something else - something that harmonises and shimmers and resonates. And the thing is, the films can still make you laugh out loud.
The Present is Thomas' third full-length film. The Seedling and Sprout were incredibly influential pieces of work that were infused with a colourfully alternative aesthetic, carrying through a recognisable thread from his visual art.
"I'm coming from the same place as you," he tells me as he knocks together a little greeting card by applying his signature scrawl upon coloured pieces of paper, wispy threads and Polaroid transfers. "I worked on magazines for years, and when you're thinking of what works in that context it's all about balance. You edit things together in layers and you hope that you come out with something that people appreciate."
With Thomas' visual art encoded in the filmic surf experience, you'd think there might be a distance between the simple act of wave-riding and the movie itself. But, amazingly, the trilogy of films has brought the viewer closer to the uniquely beautiful experience of riding a wave than many other filmmakers who have attempted to do the job.
There are so many highlights in the film it's difficult to pin down even a handful, but my personal favourites are sixty-year-old Santa Cruz shaper Michel Junod's straight-legged, soulful flow and Dave Rastovich streaking across a shimmering, cobalt-blue wall the size of a house. Alex Knost attempting to groove with Senegalese street dancers and Rob Machado's seventies anchorman hairdo are genuinely comical cutaways from the straight-ahead beauty of the tapestry.
The texture includes Tom Curren's archival mind-blower of a first wave at J-Bay and Joel Tudor dropping knowledge of the history of surf-riding influence. Even leader of the thruster-rocking airborne division Dane Reynolds is cut in, as well as what must be the best Alaia riding ever captured on film from Dan Malloy and Dave Rastovich. Australian surfer Chelsea Hedges is represented in a series of awe-inspiring barrels, bringing to the forefront the fact that there is no gender bar to radical and creative wave riding in Thomas Campbell's world.
The Present may very well be the closest to the elemental feeling of surfing you'll ever get on film. Campbell, however, is humble about it: "You just have to do things how you feel them and hope that people understand."
The Present will be touring the UK this summer.
The original article features in HUCK#015, out now.
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Thomas Campbell (text) by Michael Fordham is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.Comments (1)
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one delicious surf flick.
watch it. and then again.