The Fundy Film Society

Step into Liquid

Visually stunning, Step Into Liquid re-invents the surfing documentary the way Winged Migration makes you want to join an Aviary Club. In 1966, director Bruce Brown made The Endless Summer. Following intrepid surfers around the globe in the search for perfect waves, it would become the consummate surf film, and inspire generations of surfers. Nearly forty years later, following the success of 1994’s The Endless Summer II, surfing and filmmaking have come a long way. Dana Brown, son of Bruce, captures this evolution with startling results in this informal sequel to both those films, Step Into Liquid. The film has something for everyone-surfers and non-surfers alike. Audiences will no doubt delight at jaw-dropping footage of surfers Laird Hamilton and others being towed-in to fifty foot monster waves at a spot appropriately named Jaws, off the coast of Maui. Rochelle Ballard, Layne Beachley and Keala Kennely push the limits of women’s surfing in the beautifully dangerous waves of Tahiti. Surfing’s power to heal and bring people together is expressed when the Malloy brothers unite to bring Protestant and Catholic children together in the chilly waves of Northern Ireland. Vietnam War veteran Jim Knost returns as a surfer to the country he left thirty years ago as a soldier. Even the unlikely surf havens of Sheboygan, Wisconsin-where surfers step into the frigid liquid of the Great Lakes-and Galveston, Texas-where surfers ride the wakes of super tankers-are featured in the film. Finally, surfing’s next frontier is captured as some of the world’s best big-wave riders tackle the Cortes Banks, a hundred miles off the California coast and some of the biggest waves ever surfed are captured on glorious 35mm film. The stunning cinematography and a lively soundtrack only enhance the visuals-the ocean has never looked both so inviting and so ominous. Step Into Liquid goes far beyond the typical boundaries and conventions of recent surf films such as Blue Crush and Point Break, and dares to capture surfing in its true form. The result is spectacular, and will no doubt send even the hardiest of landlubbers reaching for a board, running for waves, and feeling the stoke.

“The best surfing documentary ever made.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

“The spectacular photography, smart editing and pounding score is so hypnotic, it’s a shock to come out of the theater and step onto concrete.” – Jane Sumner, The Dallas Morning News

“Because it gets so close to the real thing, the film does a good job of letting even the most hopelessly landlocked viewers experience vicariously the unique allure and adrenaline rush of being one with a surging 60-foot wall of water.” – Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post

“As transporting as its otherworldly title suggests.” – Megan Lehmann, The New York Post