For a movie so outwardly uncomplicated, , by directors (and brothers)听Jeff and Michael Zimbalist,听is remarkably hard to define. The simple version goes like this: Momentum Generation is a gorgeously shot feel-good documentary, filled with spectacular surfing footage on waves big and small all over the world, about the lives and friendships of eight male pro surfers and one surf filmmaker who all got to know each other back in the early 1990s, when that surf filmmaker was producing a low-budget surf flick called .
Everyone听who paid attention to surf media in the 1990s will have heard of Momentum, not because it was artfully made鈥攊t wasn鈥檛鈥攂ut because the 1992 film's听screechy punk/metal soundtrack and hyper-aggressive slash-and-aerial surfing really did announce the arrival of a new generation of young dudes who shredded waves into way smaller pieces than the reigning old dudes.听Every surfer who paid attention to surf media for even a portion of the past 25 years will also know the names and faces of most if not all of the stars of听Momentum Generation: Shane Dorian, now widely recognized as the world鈥檚 greatest big-wave surfer; Pat O鈥機onnell, co-star of the sweet-but-canned surf flick ; Rob Machado, arguably the only pro surfer ever to have built a lucrative career on a combination of brilliant surfing and lovely hair; Benji Weatherly, social glue and tender heart of the crew; Ross Williams; Kalani Robb; Taylor Knox; and, of course, Kelly Slater, the best and most famous surfer all time.
This brings me to a more complicated way of characterizing Momentum Generation鈥攁s an听exuberantly hagiographic work of celebrity journalism trading openly on the putative pleasures of glimpsing inside the charmed lives of people we are presumed to already听admire and envy.
The film, which ,听begins with the deft establishment of thumbnail backstories for each surfer: Slater talks about growing up working-class in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and the emotional toll of his father鈥檚 drinking and his parents鈥櫶齞ivorce; Knox talks about watching his father beat up his mother; Robb describes painfully impoverished days on the beach, with no adult supervision. The boys excel at surfing, become friends while rooming together at Weatherly鈥檚 home on Oahu, and thus begins a joyous Act Two in which they win contests as the aspiring filmmaker Taylor Steele鈥攐f the original Momentum, not Momentum Generation鈥攍aunches their collective journey toward surf-world fame.
The emotional center of Momentum Generation鈥攖he Act Two crisis, if you will鈥攈inges on two very different events. The first comes when Slater has two world titles and is chasing a third, and suddenly finds himself behind Machado in the rankings. Machado and Slater face each other in a semifinal at the 1995 Pipeline Masters contest and trade perfect waves that put Machado on track to fulfill his dream of becoming world champion. Machado emerges from a big tube and Slater, sitting upright on his surfboard nearby, raises one hand to offer a high five. Machado veers to consummate that high five, and the surf media goes nuts with ecstasy over this apparent display of brotherly love and shared passion for surfing in a seemingly cutthroat competitive setting.
The enduring nature of that ecstasy, the legend of the High Five Heard 鈥橰ound听the Surf World, has always been testament more to the excruciating lack of meaningful content in surf competition than to the significance of the high five itself鈥攂ecause, really, who cares? So I appreciate the willingness of Momentum Generation to explore darker aspects of this incident. Slater, it turns out, by luring Machado into that high five, and for reasons that have to do with arcane surf contest rules, cost Machado priority for the next wave. That loss of wave priority made it easier for Slater to beat Machado and seize the world title for himself, crushing Machado鈥檚 dreams and plunging him into self-doubt and despair.
Several talking heads argue that Slater did this on purpose鈥攁 genuinely ugly move, if true, exploiting a friend鈥檚 essential kindness and desire to be liked as a way of destroying him. Machado clearly leans toward that explanation himself, and fairly seethes with bitterness as he talks about it in Momentum Generation; Slater rejects this interpretation outright and appears hurt by the implication.
The second big turning point in the film听comes when an older surfer named Todd Chesser, longtime mentor to the boys,听dies in giant surf off Oahu's North Shore in 1997.听Momentum Generation听promptly听enters a blue period in which our grieving heroes drift apart and struggle to grow up, and one of the more peculiar aspects of surf culture begins to shimmer around the edges of the story. Machado, depressed about Slater鈥檚 high-five and Chesser鈥檚 death, and eliminated from the contest tour because of an injury, works to rehabilitate his career by making a solo surf film with Steele, director/producer of the original听Momentum. They come up with the idea of Machado taking听a soul-searching solo surf trip across Indonesia, with his hair in the long spectacular curls appropriate to a Central Casting seeker, and call it听.听
Putatively a documentary,听The Drifter听is good stuff: Machado achieves the last word in Spiritual Hair, is one hell of a beautiful surfer, and really does seem like a decent person. He looks great, in听The Drifter,听lying around by himself in foreign听hotel rooms, staring thoughtfully into mirrors and writing in his journal. He looks great alone on local Indonesian busses, staring moodily out the window as the world goes by, and alone on cool old motorcycles on country roads,听and alone on boat decks, staring at the sky. And if you鈥檙e wondering how he could really have been alone, given that every one of those scenes has to have been staged and that a film crew was clearly with Machado everywhere he went, well, that鈥檚 what I鈥檓 trying to talk about.听
Starting as far back as听The Endless Summer,听in 1964, surf movies have always been like porn: the action is the point, with a loose little storyline to break the monotony. Porn storylines are almost always fictional鈥攑izza guy, remodel carpenter, office hanky-panky. Surf storylines, by contrast, are almost always documentary: two buddies chasing the summer around the world, searching for the perfect wave; depressed Machado growing out his hair and looking in the mirror for enlightenment. So many surf filmmakers have made so many such films for so long that the entire culture has grown comfortable with the idea of famous surfers participating in fabricated versions of their own lives鈥攇orgeous, enviable, inspiring, but essentially fictional鈥攁nd presenting them as real, or at least, real enough.听
In听Momentum Generation,听Steele and Machado even talk about making听The Drifter听in terms of their hope that it would recast Machado鈥檚 image in ways that might be good for enticing sponsors听going forward.听Momentum Generation听then uses footage from听The Drifter听to the same end that it was used in听The Drifter听itself: to create a mood of depressed听soul-searching and show viewers of听Momentum Generation听that, during the blue period when the boys were estranged from one another, things got, you know,听heavy. Put another way, the putative documentary called听Momentum Generation听lets us know (by accident, not because anybody cares) that the putative documentary called听The Drifter听wasn鈥檛 really a documentary at all, and then deploys putatively-documentary footage of clearly staged scenes from听The Drifter听as if they are real鈥攐r, rather, in the same spirit in which that footage was used in听The Drifter,听which is to say, with absolute comfort in the idea that any line between the real and the fabricated is itself an听illusion.听
It鈥檚 all so meta-meta-postmodern that I鈥檇 have to go back to graduate school to have any hope of accurately quantifying the sheer emptiness of its deepness. That quality oozes into听Momentum Generation听itself when the blue period yields to a joyous reunion of our heroes. Wiser and warmer from the passage of years, they rekindle old friendships in full view of what must have been a minor Air Force of camera drones supported by a SEAL Team Six of water photographers, in absolutely stunning sunset light鈥攕taging a core emotional moment in their lives as if it were a Miller Lite commercial.听
I don鈥檛 mean to say that听Momentum Generation听is not pleasurable to watch听and well made, because it is. Nor do I mean to say that these men are inauthentic and their friendships听insincere鈥攂ecause again, they come across as decent guys, and are appealing to watch and listen to. I mean only to say that image-fabrication has become so routine in the surf-flick genre from which听Momentum Generation听emerges that it becomes impossible to tell if you鈥檙e watching fiction or nonfiction, or if it even matters.听