You don’t live here
You don’t surf here
These are the unwelcoming words uttered to The Surfer (played by Nicolas Cage) by surfing localists at Luna Beach, Western Australia after he returns to purchase his childhood home after it recently comes on to the market. He wants to catch a few waves before the deal is signed. The locals ‘own’ the waves and the Surfer isn’t considered a local since he spent many years in California.
This jarring level of tribal territorialism isn’t specific to Australia, but still presents an insight into this aspect of masculinity.
That is what Irish director Lorcan Finnegan (Without Name, Vivarium) wants to explore in his surreal film which often teases the fuzzy interface between reality and hallucination.
The idea for the film began when Irish screenwriter Thomas Martin (Tin Star, Prime Target) wrote a short outline for a story called The Surfer inspired by Kemm Numm’s dark ‘Surf Noir’ novels. He also read John Cheever’s (the Chekhov of the suburbs) short story ‘The Swimmer‘ which later became a film starring Burt Lancaster. The works of Australian short story writer Robert Drewe also piqued his interest. Australian New Wave films such as Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout (1971) – dreamtime stories about alienated outsiders, were also added to the creative mix.
A violent “localist” beach incident seared into Martin’s mind ignited his desire to write a screenplay about the subject.
Both Finnegan and Martin are Irish by birth, but have worked in Australia before. As outsiders, they want to tap into their unique perspective of a place that is idyllic, unsettling, and at times, brutally violent. Get off our beach. Now! Had they been native born Australians, The Surfer wouldn’t be the same story.
This is the story of The Surfer (who isn’t given a name). He was born in Australia, but moved to California after a family tragedy. Now he wants to return and resettle in a place that is hostile to him. The Bay Boys and self-appointed guardians of Luna Beach grunt, curse, and threaten him, demanding he leaves before it’s too late. The town cop urges the Surfer to heed their sage advice.
The Bay Boys partake in a serious of rituals resembling chanting, meditation, or even baptism to promulgate their religion – you have to be broken into pieces and reassembled into a new man.
The Surfer’s father’s words compel him not to turn around. “You either surf the wave or get wiped out.” This is when The Surfer takes a “Leaving Las Vegas” mind-bending detour. The Surfer descends into a nightmarish hellscape juxtaposed against the tranquil sun-kissed beach, resplendent with perfect barrel waves crashing on the shore.
The Surfer (Nicolas Cage) Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions
“We set out to make a film that feels like a strange dream, exploring materialism, identity and belonging, repressed memory, masculinity and rebirth,” adds Finnegan.
The Surfer is duly populated with testosterone-fuelled thugs who succumb to cycles of physical and psychological abuse. It taps into the menacing vein of male violence and men disconnected from masculinity.
Writing About Disconnected Men
Lorcan Finnegan draws on his own relationship with his father to underpin The Surfer’s story. He noodled a story “about a father who becomes unmoored from his family, from his community, and from himself.” Setting the story in a remote part of Australia was essential to create distance between his personal experience and Nicolas Cage’s.
The writer deeply contemplated the surf beach fight which resembled a football brawl. Finnegan wondered what these seemingly typical family men were really arguing about. There had to be more to it than turf wars. Was it “something deeper about their identity and who they really were in that community?” At that point, the story for The Surfer began to take shape.
“I’ve always been creatively drawn to Australia as a place to explore extreme frontiers — in the environment and the landscape, and also as an arena to examine the outer limits of the human condition.” It’s his take on “Ozploitation” films.
Scally (Julian McMahon) Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions
The Surfer meanders with a loosening narrative thread as a continuous stream of consciousness. Cage becomes dishevelled, erratic, but unmoved from his goal to seal the real estate deal. He won’t be bullied by The Bay Boys and certainly won’t leave.
It’s a profound assault on the senses as audiences track Cage’s emotional, spiritual and physical unravelling.
Some scenes are vignettes between his broker, his realtor, his son, his ex-wife, and the surfing thugs weaved in and out of the main story spine. The Surfer is a man in simultaneous mental deconstruction and reconstruction mode. The violence often resembles cavemen whacking each other with clubs.
The Surfer won’t budge from his goal to belong to his birthplace with or without the acceptance of the locals. He’s determined to purchase the property, but it’s not clear what the consequences are if he fails. He’s well off. He drives a shiny Lexus and he still has a house to live in. This is a deep exploration of Cage’s psyche. Is he obsessed or goal-oriented? Martin’s impetus for writing the screenplay may provide an answer – to be a good role model for his own son.
The film relies on a relentless uneasy tension to make its point. It’s like eating something that makes you wheezy and unsteady on your feet. So you lie down. It’s menacing and foreboding – like a horror movie where a character senses a danger in the murky darkness, but can’t actually see anything.
At times, the tension is released into a narrative freefall where audiences aren’t even sure what’s going on – if anything. That is the rich texture of hypnotic dreamscapes – the symbiotic braiding of form and formless storytelling.
To assign a precise genre to The Surfer is a fool’s errand. There are elements of thriller, drama, mystery, and horror. Possibly even a happy ending with the Surfer and his son finally riding those waves at Luna Beach.
