If you thought your “peeps” were dysfunctional, just wait until you get a load of the Paskowitz kin in “Surfwise.” About what some consider to be the first family of surfing, director Doug Pray’s indie documentary won’t just make you feel better by comparison about your own clan’s neuroses. It’s probably the most engrossing movie of the year so far.
The outrageous, hilarious and heartrending piece introduces us to the fanatic idealist patriarch Dr. Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, a surfing pioneer since the 1930s, and the continuing legacy of his radical philosophies of life on his nine children.
Not so much about “hanging ten” as it is about the deep love that can bind even the most alternative families, “Surfwise” considers surfing more as a belief system — as a way to fortify the body and thereby liberate the spirit — than as a sport.
Doc, an unfulfilled bourgeois Stanford-educated physician, decided to drop out of the rat race in the 1950s and dedicate himself for the next 20 years to a nomadic existence that focused on surfing and a radical approach to holistic health, child-rearing and antimaterialism. That meant piling his astonishingly understanding wife, Juliette, and an ever-growing succession of eight sons and one daughter into a 24-foot trailer for a home. He intentionally deprived them of what would be the future benefits of conventional structure and school education but also taught them a pure form of mindful living, tolerance, sacred ritual, adaptability and freethinking.
Candid interviews, archival material and present-day footage tell the tale of their incredible adventures and the ultimate effect of it all on the Paskowitz progeny. It’s definitely been a mixed bag. They became famous championship surfers and teachers of some of the most important future winners in the discipline. But as adults, they find themselves bitter about being less able tocope in a harsh real world where diplomas and money define success.
However you judge the uncompromising, progressive and sometimes tyrannical Doc Paskowitz, now in his ’80s, you can’t doubt his positive intentions or his place as a fascinating American original. “Surfwise’s” climax is a family reunion coming after more than a decade of separation over old psychological wounds and financial disputes. The outpouring of feeling there plays as a poignant, universal example of redemption and healing.
‘Surfwise’
*****
