The amusing and instructive surfing documentary had its writer, editor, and director in Dana Brown. He’s the son of Bruce Brown, the man behind the classic surfer movie ‘Endless Summer’. In this documentary, Brown takes us on a quest to find out what compels surf riders of today to treat this sport and recreation with such passion. In other words, what keeps them doing what they do: ‘the stoke’. Brown is searching for answers to these questions and indeed has an amazing array of men, women, and children in his study sample.
It was fascinating to learn of a surfing fanatic who has not spent a single day out of the water for over 27 years. Even a crippling injury could not stop a young man from going back to the surfboard. They are ridden by Brown who goes after surfers indulging in the thrill of the waves left after supertankers in Gulf of Mexico and by the Malloy brothers in Ireland who managed to unite the Protestant and Catholic youths around surfing. Aboard are some of the best Tahitian women surfers trying to brave the wave with teeth while surfer’s veteran and rookie alike jump at the chance to ride the Pipeline in Oahu without a wipe out, which is a ritual in Hawaii. Even some dedicated surfers come all the way to Sheboygan, Wisconsin to surf on the waves of Lake Michigan. But the craziest of them all is a heavy water crew who do not shy, onboard to take the 60 foot plus waves while going 100 miles off the Californian coast.
As Brown captures the stories of the professionals, the different tribes, the women high-wavers, the family surfers, and the therapy surfers, for some reason, one feels the material is still a few steps from being effectively crafted. Its scope is too wide and meandering, which causes one subject to spill into another. A father and son trip to Vietnam segment is beginning to try ones patience. There is some nice story behind it, but it seems to me like the director was unable to let go of all the footage he had after traveling this far. Sometimes, Brown just lets go of a thread that was getting interesting like, when a woman surfer says, ‘sometimes the guys get ago’ while showing a clip of some man pushing a woman off her board. Brown changes the subject far too quickly and one wishes he would have delved a little deeper into this one. Still, “Step Into Liquid” follows lots of paths that could have been the focus of a different documentary all together, like the story of Weber Dave who, twenty-five years back, mentioned a rare February with five Sundays and vowed to surf every day until one happened again.
Some individuals from Texas follow the supertanker’s waves and surf for more than two miles. An avid surfer from Lake Michigan claims that surfers can carve barrels so vast that they could conceal a Volkswagen. Brown does gratify his followers towards the end of the film, letting the audience know when a group of surfers that we are familiar with rent a boat to go out and capture elusive and mythical waves in the ocean. One of them catches a gigantic wave that we were told was estimated by experts to be around 66 feet long, and we cannot control our amazement for these brave athletes.
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