The Surfer

Gloriously mental psychological thriller in which Nicolas Cage’s frayed masculinity is subjected to a series of Herculean tests by a gang of malevolent larrikins on an Australian beach, when all he wants to do is hang ten in the swell (or whatever surfers do) while reconnecting with his teenage son.

Spooky choral ululations on the gentle folk-rock soundtrack and bold orange-pastel titles engender a 1970s exploitation vibe from the sun-doused start. Then in the nocturnal scenes, unearthly red and green light floods the background, just barely keeping the darkness from drowning the characters altogether.

Beautiful scenery full of multi-coloured brush and of course the relentless waves themselves are given a subtle edge of danger by shallow-focus long shots in whose blur any nefarious intention might be hiding, and by a psychedelic shimmering effect throughout the entire image that keeps a mysterious tingling in our toes. Then highly subjective visual techniques start to accentuate the general sense of threat, with extreme close-ups of the antagonists’ faces as they rear up right into the camera.

Even simple conversations pepper their exposition with insert shots of shaky hands or transdimensional glimpses of past, future or perhaps just imagination. Gradually, Cage himself follows suit as a passive-aggressive tone creeps into his voice, and an uncharacteristic swear word creeps into his dialogue. He’s arming himself for the inevitable confrontation with Julian McMahon’s crimson-toga’d, ageing Tyler Durden of a cult leader – the kind of man who acts like your best mate to your face, but whose deliberate backhanded insults suggest he’ll be flicking you the V-sign the moment your back’s turned.

Cage’s beta-male sensitivity seems almost comical in contrast with the Aussie alphas in his midst, warning him off with a verbal kick in the teeth. His general attitude, as much as his slightly smug California drawl, single him out as a sore thumb in a forest of raised middle fingers. He’s come back to nature in the sense of an unspoilt Eden full of loafing wallabies, watchful spiders and cackling kookaburras, as well as the sense of unreconstructed Neanderthal blokes imploring him to get off their patch, or else.

Whether Cage’s unnamed surfer likes it or not, there’s going to be a reckoning. Like Burt Lancaster in Frank Perry’s 1968 existential classic The Swimmer, it’s fascinating to watch him descend into a mysterious swamp of either paranoid delusion or elaborate conspiracy. His is one of those brilliantly expressionistic performances where the emotions go all the way through the ridiculous and towards the sublime, so if you don’t know whether to laugh or cry while watching it, it’s probably best to do both.

The Surfer rides along the cliché of nature hiding horrors beneath its alluring appearance, but its stylised subjectivity serves to intensify the Falling Down-style emotional and psychological journey of its hero. It’s also tightly wound up in the participation of a star so luminous you might accuse him of slumming it, were it not for the suspicion that this is exactly the kind of movie he wants to be making.

Thanks to the film’s strategy of enchantment by disorientation, not to mention a dollop of absurd humour, his enthusiasm is quite infectious.

-Stew Mott-