Maya and the Wave
The inspirational surfer Maya Gabeira rides the waves in Stephanie Johnes’ aquatic documentary.
Image courtesy of Tull Stories.
Anyone who loves surfing and enjoys watching documentary films on the subject must be grateful to the distribution company Tull Stories. Maya and the Wave marks the third time that they have released a film of this kind in the last two years. The first was a belated presentation in 2022 of Minna Dufton's Big vs. Small which was followed by Mikey Corker’s Savage Waters a year later. Since big waves are wonderfully photogenic it is not surprising that all three films contain outstanding photography and since Nazaré in Portugal is regarded as having the largest waves of all it is understandable that it should appear each time.
It is this latest offering directed and produced by Stephanie Johnes which most strongly features Nazaré but for my money it is still Big vs. Small which provides the benchmark. Given the overly diverse nature of its material which failed to cohere, Savage Waters is certainly the least of the three even if some elements in it can hardly help but please surfers. With Maya and the Wave, we have a film more directly comparable with Big vs. Small since it features the life and career of a woman prepared to take on the male dominated world of big wave surfing. In the earlier film that woman was the Portuguese surfer Joana Andrade while Johnes is treating the story of a Brazilian, Maya Gabeira, whose father is the noted politician and man of letters Fernando Gabeira. Just as Andrade's family appeared in Dufton’s film, Maya's father is seen here along with her mother, Yamê Reis, and her sister Tami.
I saw Big vs. Small twice liking it even more the second time. As a study of a surfer, it was splendid but it was also prepared to take on related issues with great honesty. It showed how suffering abuse in childhood contributed to Andrade’s strength of will when she turned to surfing as a means of overcoming fears and proving herself. Maya, who was born in Rio and is now thirty-five, is also a woman of determination who has had much to overcome, in her case most notably a near fatal wiping out in the water at Nazaré in 2013 which led to repeated surgery but still found her returning to the surf only two years later. Both women are seen as heroic in the films made about them and in each case the struggle for full recognition by female surfers is a key issue. In Maya's case this fight takes its most prominent form late in the film when in 2018 the World Surf League is unsupportive at a time when Maya claims – quite correctly as it proves – to have achieved a women's world record but then has to chase evidence to confirm it.
The connections between Big vs. Small and Maya and the Wave even extend to the fact that Maya herself was also seen in the earlier film and that one of the photographers here, Tim Bonython, also contributed to Dufton’s film. But what enables the latter work to pull ahead of this one is the greater depth and smoothness in its storytelling. However, we do have contributions here from Carlos Burle, Maya’s first mentor and coach, from other surfers such as Garrett McNamara, Ross Clarke-Jones and Pedro Scooby and from Sebastian Steudtner who became her partner in life and in work. We thus get an overall picture but it is sometimes presented in an unduly haphazard manner. When we glimpse Maya as an award winner before seeing footage of the terrible mishap in 2013, any confusion could be excused as being part of a general introduction. Later, however, no explanation is offered when in 2015 Maya’s return is being filmed not only by Johnes but on behalf of Red Bull. Only much further on in the film do we hear of Maya's contract with Red Bull being terminated by them. At this point we recognise Red Bull as some kind of sponsor of surfers but even then no real detail is given. For fans of surfing Red Bull may need no explanation but the film fails to cater for those of us less well informed. It may be this kind of approach that contributes to the fact that, despite Maya’s family and connections appearing, there is nothing here that comes across as vividly as the bond of friendship that develops in Big vs. Small between Joana Andrade and the Finnish freediver Johanna Nordblad who is so clearly a kindred spirit.
Maya’s biggest triumph noted in Maya and the Wave comes up only in the written statements that conclude the film, but no less than Andrade she is clearly a figure who deserves to be considered an example for younger women to emulate. That Johnes chooses not to mention others like Andrade is, perhaps, a misjudgment and for me that also applies to the use of pop songs. When we are given awesome images of the waves, I'm not convinced that that is the most suitable music to accompany them – but that is doubtless a matter of taste. In any case it seems fair to say that there is plenty in Maya and the Waves to make it a film which its key audience will readily appreciate. But it is the fact that the appeal of Big vs. Small went so much wider and deeper than one could ever have anticipated that made it such an outstanding documentary and in that respect this film simply cannot compete.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Maya Gabeira, Carlos Burle, Fernando Gabeira, Yamê Reis, Sebastian Steudtner, Pedro Scooby, Garrett McNamara, Ross Clarke-Jones, Tami Gabeira, Éric Rebière, Luiz Pimenta, Miguel Moreira, Isabela Centeno, Lina Kovacevic, Sofia Gazel Nassar.
Dir Stephanie Johnes, Pro Stephanie Johnes, Ph Stephanie Johnes, Jorge Leal, Dudu Miranda, João Pedro Plácido and Tim Bonython, Ed Shannon Kennedy and Jordan Berg, Music Turtle.
Uncle Booster-Tull Stories.
98 mins. USA. 2022. US Rel: 13 September 2024. UK Rel: 4 October 2024. Cert. 12A.
