Cluster is full of sound, fury and signifies nothing. And it depresses me because this is the best surf class ever.
Kai Neville’s special gift, as a filmmaker, is that the coolest of the cool shine for him and, moreover, want to shine for him. They trust him to depict them properly and they feel comfortable and happy with his depiction, which is rare, because cool is like an exotic flower that wilts as soon as gazed upon. The coolest of the cool know this, intimately, and usually guard their blessing under armors of irony, social awkwardness, self-deprecation etc. But Kai is trusted and they allow him to show them as they are and, moreover, how they truly feel about themselves.
Cluster, then, is a pure, unfiltered snapshot of cool right now. It is stylish. It is beautiful boys throwing hammers while wearing unbuttoned button-ups. It is hands-free rotors. It is high production with a low production gloss. It is exotic locales. It is David Bowie and Hole and NWA. It is gorgeous but missing something.
And that something is exemplified by Noa Deane’s “Fuck Cops” scrawled in black marker across the bottom of his white board. And the “Fuck the WSL” chant that went up before the film turned on, led by Austyn Gillette (which I didn’t actually catch because I was feasting on the most divine bouillabaisse three blocks away).
And by the cavalcade of cigarettes and middle fingers. It seems that the coolest of the cool are very angry but angry at what? The WSL? Cops? The systemic devaluation of black urban youth? An unpegged Swiss Franc that will make visiting Zurich next year a virtual impossibility? Great. There is much to be angry about in this day and age but the coolest of the cool are not doing a goddamn thing with their rage because they are frozen between 1990’s bellicose ambivalence and 2015’s millennial over-achieving and in their frozenness they are not leaving a mark. Their lives are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. And it depresses me because this class is the best surf class ever. More beautiful, more aware, more intelligent.
“But they are simply surfers…” you shout at me while imploring that I dismount from my high horse. “EXACTLY!” I shout back, refusing to budge because my saddle is Hermes. They should be rebranding surfing in their image and, therefore, rebranding popular culture. They should be figuring out what 2020 looks like but instead they lilt through the world, half-drunk with a slightly bent middle finger held about as high as they can muster.
If the coolest of the cool don’t actually want to “fuck” anything, they should stop pretending and order another round of fancy cocktails. Ineffectual, toothless aggressive posturing never looks good. But if they do? More fun! Gang paddle out at Snapper for the Quiksilver Pro and dare Graham Stapelberg to arrest you! Start riots in Hossegor in honor of free speech. Surf naked and when the arresting police officers come slap them on behalf of your subjugated inner-city brethren.
Either way it is wonderful. Fancy cocktails are wonderful. Wild in the streets is wonderful. Just fucking decide.
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I find it somewhat sad that surfing’s idea of being different is to pretend to be Kurt Kobain. Ryan Burch is probably laughing his ass of at the mediocrity of it all.
550k a room, $100 mill for the whole shebang… http://www.labusinessjourna…
Is that really true? The Ace is shuttering?
Yar. http://la.curbed.com/archiv…
Also, how was the surfing in the movie? You didn’t mention the surfing.
I thought it was interesting how Dane Reynolds talked in that 3-part series about Marine Layer that he created Marine Layer to get away from the “film for a year for a 3 minute segment” schtick, AND that he is now shuttering Marine Layer in order to film for a year for a 3 minute segment in Cluster. Was it worth it, Dane? Here’s hoping he reopens Marine Layer.
On a related note, the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, where this premiered, is closing after just one year. I’m sure a lot of beers were chugged at the Ace, but that wasn’t enough to keep it in business.
On an unrelated note…
No, you see, both Cluster and the Ace Hotel are canned, vacuous parties breathing their last gasps.
I missed the irony. Thank you. Agreed.
Great stuff.
The problem with surfing is that, with
the exception of the Polynesians and Hawaiians who hate leaving their home waves, it’s all white people. And, especially for the Americans, it’s mostly upper class white people since they are the only ones who can afford to live on the beach anymore. At least Hawaii has always produced working class white surfers, even JOB and JJF come from humble backgrounds, but California, Florida, etc, are just producing spoiled and rich white kids. The kind of kids who will talk a big protest game on Facebook or Twitter and then bitch about how a “black lives matter” protest blocked their train home.
To them it is rebellious to throw up a middle finger and smoke a cigarette outside the theatre because those are the kinds of stories they heard from their parents trying to impress how cool they used to be, and they will tell their kids the same boring ass pseudo-rebellious tales. They will tell those tales after they’ve quit surfing and started working whatever middle management job will allow them to pass the beachfront lifestyle onto another generation.
When push comes to shove and you need some authentic outrage, it isn’t going to come from the kinds of kids who’s families were able to afford their surfing abilities. If you think that ability wasn’t bought and paid for, you’ve got another thing coming.
The beachfront lifestyle is pretty great.
You’ll get no argument from me as long as you’re not pretending it’s cheap to live on the beach anywhere that it’s nice to live on the beach. Sure, it’s cheap to live on the beach if you want to live on the Lost Coast in California, or anywhere on the coast in Oregon or Washington State, but why would you want to be miserable and cold 360 days of the year?
The reference to your Hermes saddle made my day thus far and for this I thank you Chas.
In surfing rebellion is getting an education. Not looking like a surfer is looking like a surfer, not looking like a surfer not looking like a surfer not looking like a surfer is next level rebellion.
Don’t be so disappointed Chas. It’s symptomatic of white middleclass and upper-middleclass youth in general. Youth divisions in political parties are a perfect example. The hard left are vacuous little ponies who struggle with their daily life despite their protests of being imbued with nothing but positive energy. The centre-left are all from privileged backgrounds who listen to Springsteen, trying to prove that they’re progressive, thinking they know what it is like to struggle and too busy arguing amongst themselves over the use of the word rape to actually do anything. The centre-right kids are only there for the contacts and flashy cocktail parties. You can roll them on their beliefs pretty quickly. The hard right? There’s just something not right with them, but they chicken out pretty quickly because they are scared of everyone. No one really believes anything any more. And after all, bluster is the most common form of mating display. You can’t mate successfully while injured. White kids are fucked by their need to fuck.
I mean. The best comment I have ever read. Ever.
Seriously. I’m fucking dying of shame that my comment game will never approach what he just did there. Heysus Kreestay…
Youth just like the sound of breaking glass, its just that some throw Molotov cocktail’s.
True. I did witness a drunk Maori youth hurl a steinlager bottle at a late model Ford Falcon driving hurriedly away from the bottlestore lastnight. But he certainly wasn’t a impotent middle class white kid. I almost congratulated him on his ferocity, but then I realised I was late for dinner with my genteel white middle class Labour party friends and bailed. In hindsight it was a mistake.
You’ve definitely proven here that you are not mild mannered at all!
Yeah, it’s a facade that I manage to put on for about 40 hours of the week and some times for special occasions.
I like Noa Deane’s tweeked-out frontside airs but he kinda creeps me out at the same time. Like a clown in a Stephen King novel.
Thank you Chas.
One of the most disappointing aspects of this movie was the cast’s inability to: A) chug beer on stage, and B) properly shotgun a Bintang. In both cases more fluid hit the ground than not. Poor effort.
Sure can smoke a cig though. Lung cancer! Hell yeah!