Sara Blecher's OTELO BURNING debuts digitally via Sundance Institute's Artist Services Program

If you were lucky enough to see the unusual and eye-opening 2011 documentary White Wash (if you'd like to, click here), you'll already be one-up on the idea of black surfboarders taking to the waves and having one of those waves "catch them," rather than the other way around -- which, as we're told, is simply untrue: A surfer, black or white, never "catches a wave." Rather, the wave catches him or her. All of the above is a kind of prelude to my discussion of the film that arrives here digitally this coming week: OTELO BURNING, a narrative movie by Sara Blecher that has its style and roots deep in the documentary form.

This should be no surprise, for the documentary realm is from where Ms Blecher hails (the filmmaker is shown above), having made the 2011 South African "train surfing" doc Surfing Soweto and then the South African version of the TV reality series, Who Do You Think You Are?  Initially, Otelo Burning seems quite like a documentary in many ways, from its look, sound (the movie is narrated as often as any dialog is spoken) and performances, which have to them, the kind of "reality" we often expect from that other, true-life movie format.

The film tracks a groups of friends -- Otelo (below, right); his little brother, Ntwe (below, left, and in the fourth photo down); their friend New Year and his sister Dezi (above); and a new and possible friend named Mandla, a sexy interloper (two photos below) who introduces the group to surfing, at which Mandla is pretty damned good.

There's a lot going on in Otelo Burning, much of it seemingly peripheral to the story -- the coming end of apartheid and the rebellions forming toward that purpose; Otelo and Ntwe's father's great fear that something will happen to Little Ntwe (he imagines it to be the mythical/legendary snake that's said to inhabit the local river, in which Ntwe almost drowns at the film's beginning); the expected racism that shows itself more in the white families for whom these blacks toil than in the surfing competitions in which they eventually engage.

Ms Blecher manages to weave all this together, however, and pretty well, until we understand that all of it is connected in ways that most of these kids -- too young and immature to do much more than surf, fall in love and get in a little trouble -- can possibly yet have figured out.

What dialog is heard is spoken mostly in Zulu and occasionally in English, and the performances by all range from at least serviceable to quite good. Blecher coaxes a real feeling of community and pleasant extemporaneous-ness from her actors, at least up until the point that coming-of-age morphs into heavy melodrama and something supremely dark.

We know that some of the folk we've seen and heard have access to guns, and that talk of an informer has been heard circulating. When a sudden and truly horrific act occurs, the horror of it threatens to derail the movie and in fact turns it into another genre -- without the filmmaker's possessing quite the genre-jumping expertise that a more seasoned hand might bring to the project.

Maturity is thrust suddenly upon certain characters, while the chance for this is stolen from one of them. Yet another is shown up to be supremely, shockingly evil. How well you buy all this will depend, I think, on how much you've given yourself over to the movie at the point at which it seems to change course. I had some trouble here, though I'm happy to have had the chance to meet this little group and share in their lives for a time.

The tag line about "freedom" on the movie's poster steals from the old Janis Joplin song. Freedom of a sort is certainly important to Otelo and his friends, though their understanding of it is at this point woefully limited. Surfing provides a taste of it (oddly, the movie spends rather little time on the actual learning of the skill or even of its being practiced in the water, above), but any kind of genuine freedom for South African blacks (or whites, for that matter) still eludes this sad, traumatized country. (For the best and deepest look so far at post-Apartheid South Africa, do see -- if you haven't already -- Disgrace, the fine and disturbing movie starring John Malkovich.)

Meanwhile, Otelo Burning opens digitally this Tuesday, January 14, via the Sundance Institute's Artist Services Program -- with the film available for pre-order through Sundance Institute’s Now Playing page, as a result of the partnership between Sundance Institute and IFP, which release several of their alumni films each year through this collaboration. Otelo Burning will also be making its debut on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Microsoft Xbox, Sony Entertainment Network, SundanceNOW, VUDU and YouTube/GooglePlay.

HIGHWATER: the Brown family continues its love affair with the cinema of surfing

They do love surfing, those Browns -- father Bruce and son Dana -- as they've shown repeatedly in docu-
mentaries like The Endless Summer(s) and Step Into Liquid. Dana's back this summer with a new surfing movie titled HIGHWATER, during which the writer/
director and his crew visit the North Shore of Oahu, also known as the 7-Mile Miracle and/or the Xanadu of surfing.  Why this is and what it means to surfing and the surfers is nicely explained -- both scientifically and emotionally -- during the course of the film, in which we meet a large number of men and women who have built their lives (and sometimes those of their families) around the sport.

In Highwater, Brown fils (shown at left) returns to Oahu's North Shore to see if those big waves are still there.  The waves are there, all right, and they're great. Less so are some of this filmmaker's visual effects: speeded-up photography, slo-mo, and split screen images that, in the case of the scenic ocean vistas, rolling waves and amazing surfers, is somewhat akin to gilding the sea-lily.  Still the whole package makes for some amazing individual shots now and again, as well as some relatively interesting visits with various surfers who talk about their lives and their sport.

Along the way we learn why the Hawaiian waves on the North Shore are so huge, as well as the ways in which the area that encompasses the North Shore, and what surfers refer to as the Pipeline, has changed over the decades.  According to one fellow, the rich are continually buying up all the land and building houses, so eventually, one suspects, this will limit access to the place -- for everyone except those rich.

We learn that women -- and even young children of twelve or thirteen are now much more involved in professional surfing than was true in the movie-making days of Brown's dad.  We meet a few of these women and kids, and watch as they compete for the Triple Crown: the final three contests of the surfing year.

The men have their own contests and, as expected, much more attention is paid to them.  Later in the film we see a kind of hand-holding-in-the-ocean funeral service -- shown above -- for one surfer, Malik Joyeux, who is suddenly drowned.

After awhile, we've been introduced to so many different surfers that, for the novice surfer-watcher like me, identities begin to blur rather badly.  Certain people do stand out: Bethany Hamilton (shown below), for instance, the very pretty young blond surfer who lost an arm during a shark attack and still came back to surf again -- and surprisingly well.  Another pair of friends (just above), one of whom appears to have no legs, take their turn on boards.  

While the personalities of all these people barely come through (including that of one of the finalists--or was he a winner?--pictured below), even with the rather lengthy narration provided by the filmmaker, one of the group does indeed stand out for his reticence and mystery. This is Eric Haas, who likes to surf in odd costume and away from the crowds and competitions -- yet still seems to be among the very best of the lot.  

Toward the end of the film Brown catches some of the men speaking up about being able to earn their living doing what they love: getting paid for surfing.  One of them has managed to do this quite well.  But, as another notes, "You must be seen!"  Well, the North Shore is certainly the place to get this attention (cameras are seldom absent from the spot), and yet, what about Mr. Haas? Brown does not exactly say this, but Haas, shown below, seems to stand for  surfing on one's own -- with no PR machine, no organization behind him, no cares about competing -- simply for the love the activity.  This is accomplishment for its own sake, which exults in its own kind of success.

Highwater opens this Friday, August 27, in New York City at the Angelika Film Center and in Hawaii ('natch!) on Oahu at the Victoria Ward and the Kahala, and on Maui at the Maui Mall Megaplex. Click here for additional playdates, cities and theaters in the California -- from San Diego to San Francisco -- and Washington, then click on showtime in the drop-down menu.

(All photos are from the film, except that of 

Mr. Brown, by Jeff Vespa, courtesy of WireImage.)