Chas Smith got it so fucking wrong…
Three hours ago, 714 mostly young men attended the Australian premiere of Kai Neville’s film Cluster at a restored art deco cinema in Sydney.
Roughly a tenth of the young men there wore the headgear of Craig Anderson, a perennial of Kai’s films (with varying degrees of success. How do you snatch the style of someone as ephemeral as Craig Anderson? How can you make hair that colour and fall in those curls without the falsity of premeditation?). Others, though less in number, wore savage blond bobs in the style of Noa Deane.
I came into the movie with BeachGrit’s Chas Smith’s criticism whistling in my ears. Too long, too repetitious, too derivative, too “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” I downed each criticism by the spoonful.
And that fat old Lazarus Surfer turned on Cluster, too.
“I’m not going to get all Nostradamus and warn of the impending death of the surf movie, because that will never happen,” wrote Todd Prodanovich. “But I do think that this type of surf movie—a straightforward montage of high action and lifestyle—is hurting. In a world where we can pull up free web clips on our phones featuring surfing and editing on par with anything in Cluster, you have to wonder: if it isn’t the very best, then what’s the point?”
But after an hour of Cluster?
Oh Chas, loving you thus and hating you so, my heart is torn in two!
In order, Mitch Coleborn, Brendon Gibbens, Conner Coffin (with Taj Burrow and Jay Davies cameos) Dillon Perillo, Dion Agius and Ozzie Wright (mutual open-shirt twerking), Jack Freestone, Chippa Wilson, Creed McTaggart, Ryan Callinan, Dane Reynolds, Craig Anderson and Noa Deane come along and noisily de-stud us.
All those skills Kai has developed from punching out films for 15 years has been squeezed into Cluster’s sixty-ish minutes. The cuts are switchblade sharp, the pacing so submerged but so heart-racing, the clips dazzling in their choice.
Oh, of course we’d like John John. Who doesn’t want to step into his fire? Why no John?
Let’s ask Kai!
This interview took place just after the movie finished. It’s a noisy little jam and the interviewer causes his subject some confusion when he refers to the skate brand Baker as Baxter. What can I say, skating ain’t my thing.
Cluster drops into the iTunes store on March 17.
Neither of your reviews say anything substantial about the surfing in this movie.
…yeah, you’re right… so off the top of my head… Everyone I bumped into at the premiere or afterwards, seemed to think Freestone had the best section. I ain’t going to disagree. Kai’s favourite is Craig Anderson’s, but Kai’s angle is skewed from having to watch every clip a zillion times… the amount of real estate Conner Coffin tears up on a wave is remarkable, although his section is very short. Creed surfs better than I’ve ever seen. Dion v Oz is instructive, a generational see-saw… the opening shot of Reynolds nailing a lofty frontside air at Rincon (from the air) takes y’breath as do his new lines, something he’s obvs been working on. Who else? Brendon Gibbens runs a little hot and cold, although the intro to his section is beautiful. Dillon Perillo is mostly cold although he enlivens his section toward the end. Mitch Coleborn opens the movie and is an excellent curtain raiser. Ryan Callinan is a leader of smooth-radical. Very few poor clips, to be honest.
I get all tongue tied when interviewed, I have been interviewed for the tv news a few times and for a documentary but I have never received any airtime, always on the cutting room floor so to speak or should that be stutter.
I got on the Gold Coast news surf report once with a half assed reo at Snapper, I was having a beer at a cafe near the giant outdoor TV screen at circle on Cavill when I caught my very unconvincing turn being replayed in full colour, still no invite to I’m a celebrity get more outta here or whatever it is.
I haven’t been able to trust Chas on such matters since he ranked Lost Atlas above Dear Subs.
I’ll give him kudos for his enthusiasim and insight… though, there is room to grow that vocabulary. It probably applies to most of us, I only just learnt of the word friperous last week. On a side note, why doesn’t BeachGrit record Kai conducting a monthly book review?
…or maybe we discuss cinema?
I’ll grant you that is the logical choice, I just wanted to see him speak on something outside his normal sphere of operations. As long as I get to hear the word ‘like’ at least a hundred times per minute, I will not complain. Plus, I’m guessing many are sick of hearing about Kerouac.
He could just do a weekly report on pant fit trends amongst his film subjects, I’m talking ankle length, slim or loose fit etc, they seem to be sharing this information amongst themselves so surely it isn’t fair that us outliers have to wait until the current ensemble is gathered on stage every year or so to follow suit.
God knows I need such information quickly to hand down here in the backwaters: it’s important to remain avant garde.
Are you old enough to remember Radio with Pictures hosted by Dick Driver? He’s gone all mainstream now and goes by Richard, this has nothing to do with Kai Neville however although Kai would love some of those 80’s TVNZ production values and surely a bit of Flying Nun signed artistry.
Nah, a bit too young. I had Jason Gunn and his side-kick ‘Thingee’ losing his eye on live national television (scarred a generation that incident). I heard Karen Hayes was perpetually stoned on Radio with Pictures. Now she is on talkback radio with Andrew Fagan of The Mockers. Irrelevant I know.
Kai did put some footage to Pink Frost by The Chills on the Dear Suburbia off-cuts. Probably a massive back catalogue of Flying Nun he would like if he can dig Derek’s favourite artist: Connan Mockasin.
How many times can you say “like” in like, five minutes, like seriously who can listen to this all the way through, like?
Ha! I couldn’t even bring myself to listen to it!