Savage Waters
Mikey Corker’s French documentary is the tale of an audacious sea trip with particular appeal for lovers of surfing.
A year ago, Minna Dufton’s Big vs. Small, a film about the Portuguese surfer Joana Andrade, was released in the UK by Tull Stories. It was a fine film and much applauded (I praised it on Film Review Daily and delighted in it even more on a second subsequent viewing) so it is understandable that the same distributor should now seek to match it with another film that features surfing and at times incorporates scenes at Nazaré in Portugal, a location which was even more central in Big vs. Small. However, in an ironical twist it is the skills found in Dufton’s film which show up the comparative failure of Savage Waters although this new piece shot in wide screen certainly includes some fine photography by its director Mikey Corker especially when the big waves become a central feature.
What links these two documentaries beyond the surfing aspect is the range of material involved. Dufton's film was something of a biopic, not just a film about a sport but a study of Joana Andrade which showed how this small woman fought to gain recognition as a talented surfer but which also encompassed much more including her need to overcome an earlier trauma and the wonderful sense of kinship that grew up between her and a free diver from Finland, Johanna Nordblad, to whom she had turned for advice and guidance. But, where Dutton brought all of these threads together so that they cohered memorably, Corker fails to do anything comparable with the diverse material that he has to handle.
The first of the three chapters that make up Savage Waters is entitled ‘The Book’ and the film begins with its central figure, Matt Knight, explaining the impact that was made on him by the publication in question. Its title was The Cruise of the Alerte and it had appeared around 1890. It described a voyage taken to an uncharted region in the North Atlantic and it expressed the belief that there was treasure to be found there in what was known as the Savage Islands. Inspired by what he read, Matt would set out from Britain on his own ship, the Hecate, in 2014 seeking to reach the islands by way of Nazaré and Madeira. He too was looking for treasure there, but his idea of treasure was to locate exceptional new waves that were ideal for surfing but had yet to be discovered.
The opening of Savage Waters puts Matt Knight’s initial undertaking at its centre. It gives the impression that the film will be an exciting account of this adventurous endeavour which found Knight, both a sailor and a surfer, linking up with the big wave surfer Andrew Cotton. However, their voyage yields less than one might expect and Corker fills in with other material. Some of it is promising as when we meet Matt’s redoubtable partner Suzanne Hobbs and their family history is recalled through old photographs. We learn also something of Cotton but the main narrative is put aside while Matt recalls the tragic loss at sea of a friend years earlier. Meanwhile quotations from The Cruise of the Alerte read in voice over by Charles Dance are featured in an attempt to emphasise parallels between the two expeditions. But these become distracting rather than enriching since the more often they come up the more they feel forced.
However, if the impact of chapter 1 is decidedly uneven, to call chapter 2 ‘Troubled Waters’ is all too descriptive of the film itself at this new stage. The initial tale having fizzled out, we now go all over the place both literally (Bristol suddenly pops-up and so does Bundoran in Ireland) and in the sense that all kinds of miscellaneous bits and pieces are interwoven. At times Andrew Cotton takes over as the central figure, the children of Matt and Suzanne are brought in but without making any great impact, a serious accident occurs and there is also a health crisis. Even throughout this middle section the quotations spoken by Charles Dance remain a feature.
The time scale is such that some three years pass in this way and only Chapter 3 can be thought of as truly resuming the original tale since we now find Matt setting out once more for the islands and still intent on finding some great waves there. It's probably inappropriate to say how well he fares, but the film ends on a philosophical note rather than reaching a true climax. Any filmmaker tackling subject matter that may develop in more ways than one is taking a risk and perhaps Corker was unlucky here. Yet for all the film’s weaknesses it should be said that there's something here for any audience of dedicated surfers and, as it turns out, the finished work does emerge as something of a tribute to Suzanne Hobbs. Nevertheless, this piece is a very far cry from matching the qualities found in Big vs. Small.
Original title: La vague perdue.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Matt Knight, Andrew Cotton, Suzanne Hobbs, Ross Edgley, Harriet Knight, Jemima Knight, Peony Knight, Taz Knight, Alex Botelho, Ed Smith, and the voice of Charles Dance.
Dir Mikey Corker, Pro Ghislaine Couvillat, Ph Mikey Corker, Ed Jordan Montminy, Music Aisling Brouwer and Anna Phoebe (Avawaves).
Whipped Sea-Tull Stories.
93 mins. France. 2022. UK Rel: 27 October 2023. Cert. 12A.
