The pop culture feature documentary is a strange beast. More so than other big screen documentaries, chronicles of movements, events or trends within living memory are faced with a greater than usual question of subjectivity and a resulting need for editorialisation. Is the purpose to nostalgically relive the good ol’ days or to use the luxury of distance and hindsight to make a point?
Bustin’ Down The Door is an energetic and unashamedly fond account of the turning point of surfing from a pastime to a legitimate professional sport in the mid 1970’s. The film focuses on a handful talented Australian and South African surfers who took up residence on – and took over – Hawaii’s North Shore in the winters of 1974, ‘75 and ’76. While there are codas glimpsing at the private lives of surf royalty Shaun Tomson, ‘Rabbit’ Bartholomew, Mark Richards and Ian Cairns, the film focuses squarely on the pursuit of these guys to make a living out of what they loved, gain respect as the best in the world, and legitimise surfing as a professional sport.
Director Jeremy Gosch is at pains to show the motivation of these mavericks was a kind of fame above fortune. They wanted to make money, sure, but only enough to support their lifestyle of surfing the globe. For these guys it was about respect and acknowledgement and adulation. Rabbit and Cairns and Peter Townend (PT) found themselves prime targets for the angry, pride-wounded Hawaiian locals because they were so zealous in pursuit of this fame rather than fortune.
How this tension played out – the low key Hawaiians being publicly insulted in the surfing media by the upstart Australians – is easily the most compelling part of the film and provides a fitting climax. And yet something rang hollow almost immediately that the credits began to roll.
The whole premise of the film is a celebration of the achievement of these guys to legitimise their sport and make a living for themselves. Then for a few, gaudy moments, we see what their legacy has become. The oversized cheques for ridiculous sums of prize money being doused in champagne at the prestigious Triple Crown presentation. The rock-star lifestyle of tour surfers, sponsored by multi-billion dollar surf lifestyle companies. The film even opens with a shot of Kelly Slater rocking up to the ASP (Association of Professional Surfers) awards night in a black Maserati.
Yet none of the men this film was created to celebrate – not one of the central figures that, according to the doco, were directly responsible for the current state of the sport – is shown to comment on what their legacy has become. And I want to know damnnit. Gosch shows the contrast between what these guys wanted to achieve and the circus it has become, but doesn’t have a single comment on how they feel about that evolution. Don’t bring it up, leave the film as a rose-coloured nostalgia trip, or ask the hard questions.
In a similar vein, while most of these pioneering guys seem to have survived the years relatively unscathed, South African charger Michael Tomson is clearly, painfully worse for wear. Tomson always played second fiddle to his more successful and well-liked cousin Shaun, but Michael was one of the most influential figures in the surf wear and surf lifestyle industry. He founded Gotcha and set the design tone for the whole industry for most of the 80’s and early 90’s. He sold the brand in 1997 after it lost it’s way financially and ideologically. The same, apparently, could be said for Tomson. Michael lived hard, partied hard and bought into the lifestyle he was selling – sex and drugs and waves. His face, and his broken voice, shows it. Although still well respected and relatively well off, Tomson still qualifies as a casualty of the industry these guys gave birth to. But not a single hard question is asked of the man. Just fond, embellished backslapping.
Although not immediately apparent even to the relatively informed viewer, the sense that these incisive and important questions are left unasked is still tangibly frustrating. And no amount of hard-childhood stories from a likeably-greying Rabbit or earnest tones of Edward Norton’s narration can paper the cracks of this jumbled together doco.
Bustin’ Down The Door is an energetic and unashamedly fond account of the turning point of surfing from a pastime to a legitimate professional sport in the mid 1970’s. The film focuses on a handful talented Australian and South African surfers who took up residence on – and took over – Hawaii’s North Shore in the winters of 1974, ‘75 and ’76. While there are codas glimpsing at the private lives of surf royalty Shaun Tomson, ‘Rabbit’ Bartholomew, Mark Richards and Ian Cairns, the film focuses squarely on the pursuit of these guys to make a living out of what they loved, gain respect as the best in the world, and legitimise surfing as a professional sport.
Director Jeremy Gosch is at pains to show the motivation of these mavericks was a kind of fame above fortune. They wanted to make money, sure, but only enough to support their lifestyle of surfing the globe. For these guys it was about respect and acknowledgement and adulation. Rabbit and Cairns and Peter Townend (PT) found themselves prime targets for the angry, pride-wounded Hawaiian locals because they were so zealous in pursuit of this fame rather than fortune.
How this tension played out – the low key Hawaiians being publicly insulted in the surfing media by the upstart Australians – is easily the most compelling part of the film and provides a fitting climax. And yet something rang hollow almost immediately that the credits began to roll.
The whole premise of the film is a celebration of the achievement of these guys to legitimise their sport and make a living for themselves. Then for a few, gaudy moments, we see what their legacy has become. The oversized cheques for ridiculous sums of prize money being doused in champagne at the prestigious Triple Crown presentation. The rock-star lifestyle of tour surfers, sponsored by multi-billion dollar surf lifestyle companies. The film even opens with a shot of Kelly Slater rocking up to the ASP (Association of Professional Surfers) awards night in a black Maserati.
Yet none of the men this film was created to celebrate – not one of the central figures that, according to the doco, were directly responsible for the current state of the sport – is shown to comment on what their legacy has become. And I want to know damnnit. Gosch shows the contrast between what these guys wanted to achieve and the circus it has become, but doesn’t have a single comment on how they feel about that evolution. Don’t bring it up, leave the film as a rose-coloured nostalgia trip, or ask the hard questions.
In a similar vein, while most of these pioneering guys seem to have survived the years relatively unscathed, South African charger Michael Tomson is clearly, painfully worse for wear. Tomson always played second fiddle to his more successful and well-liked cousin Shaun, but Michael was one of the most influential figures in the surf wear and surf lifestyle industry. He founded Gotcha and set the design tone for the whole industry for most of the 80’s and early 90’s. He sold the brand in 1997 after it lost it’s way financially and ideologically. The same, apparently, could be said for Tomson. Michael lived hard, partied hard and bought into the lifestyle he was selling – sex and drugs and waves. His face, and his broken voice, shows it. Although still well respected and relatively well off, Tomson still qualifies as a casualty of the industry these guys gave birth to. But not a single hard question is asked of the man. Just fond, embellished backslapping.
Although not immediately apparent even to the relatively informed viewer, the sense that these incisive and important questions are left unasked is still tangibly frustrating. And no amount of hard-childhood stories from a likeably-greying Rabbit or earnest tones of Edward Norton’s narration can paper the cracks of this jumbled together doco.
2.5/5
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