A part of me has always wanted to become a “surfer dude” … but without having to ride the board myself. I always had a knack for media with coastal undertones, marathoning the Surf’s Up movies and wishing my fantasy ocean life was soundtracked by the SpongeBob score. I was mesmerized by my uncle’s surf stories from when he lived on the Jersey Shore in his 20s but was too afraid to actually learn from him, probably because I was scared that Soul Surfer could happen to me. My fascination with the surf subculture prospered well into my late teens, as I scoured my local surf shops and photographed beaches during trips to visit where he now resides in Laguna Niguel, CA—appreciating the craft from outside the water.
A big chunk of the music I consume has been broadly defined as “modern surf rock.” Eternally chill and beachy bands like The Drums, Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees and whenever King Gizzard goes psychedelic are staples in my Spotify playlists—music that can slowly ripple on in the background as I do menial tasks. As I was neck-deep in a phase where I listened to nothing but Allah-Las’ dreamy instrumental songs, I stumbled upon their contributions on the soundtrack for Self Discovery for Social Survival—a documentary surf film that manages to create so much meaning among the glistening, moon-crescent waves and the music that was inspired by them.
Since the genre’s inception in the 1950s, visuals and music have existed in separate spaces during the creation of a surf film. Instead of having a designated team of music supervisors to find pre-existing songs that fit, Self Discovery for Social Survival rewrote the script by inviting a handful of surf rock-adjacent musicians—MGMT, Conan Mockasin, Dungen—to create the music that came to mind as they were watching the footage back. As the three arcs progress, you’re experiencing the scenes at the same time as the instrumentals—creating a lush, multidimensional universe that allows for a full immersion inside the musical process, something deeper than a remotely-curated soundtrack.
Self Discovery for Social Survival has become my new-age Endless Summer—minus the weird colonialist undertones—so I was shocked to see how criminally underrated and underseen it’s been, particularly among music fans, since its release via Mexican Summer and Pilgrim Surf + Supply in 2019. First-time director Chris Gentile aimed to portray the intrinsic relationship of music and surfing, and does exactly that. It’s an intimate and harmonious meeting between man and wave, as the featured surfers journey from Mexico to the Maldives to Iceland in search of the perfect ride. Predictably, it was only really picked up by surfer magazines, but I believe that it’s beautifully simplistic and poetic, and should be the new staple sesh movie for college stoners who need to throw something “vibey” on the living room TV—or just anyone who longs to consume a wonderfully-crafted surf film.
The film opens with a space-age surf montage of color and zig-zags, as the reverbing guitar riffs of “Var Har Du Varit” by Swedish band Dungen crash together with the glimmery waves. Late Lithuanian avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Melkas plays tour guide as he fills the lulls between rides with details of the surfer’s escapades. He talks of locals down the shore, like an old man in Mexico who smelled of tequila and told the crew that the real miracles were “three cigarettes” away, down by the water. Self Discovery for Social Survival lets these interactions with locals speak for themselves, not trying to insert any forced, shallow understanding or whitewashing into these authentically beautiful human moments. After all, as Melkas laments, “there are no status symbols, no socioeconomic markers” within surfing. “In the water, we are water.”
As the surfers trek from Los Angeles to the waters of the world, LA-based rock band Allah-Las is shown in a wooden, open-air studio—tinkering with shimmery riffs and 1960s French-inspired melodies as the clips from the crew project onto the wall. The film sprinkles these behind-the-scenes looks throughout—lining each track up perfectly with the mood they emulate. The leisurely graceful “Blueberry Jam” is superimposed over a luscious sunset scene, the surfers laying on their boards as the waves simmer down into a static pool. The electro-pop, pulsating “Mirror in the Sky” by San Francisco duo Peaking Lights soundtracks a more energetic moment, as the surfers fight through the pummeling tunnels, either being sent up into the air or ramming back down into the water. The enigmatic duo of Mockasin and MGMT’s Andrew VanWyngarden lay a mesmeric, cloudy haze over snowy surf sessions in Iceland through their trademark hissing, backpedaled chamber pop.
Not much explanation or context is given from these bands regarding their music-making processes during the wave-watching, but that’s exactly the point. These songs are meant to represent pure expression based on in-the-moment instincts—a divinely fleeting and unspoken process that can only be articulated through sound.
It’s easy to get sucked into a hypnotic state of mind while watching Self Discovery for Social Survival. Every time I try to put it on in the background to complete my aforementioned menial tasks, I find that I can’t actually look away. The vivid coloring, the crisp closeups of every splash and bathing suit fold, the silent cheer you find yourself doing every time a surfer gets a smooth ride, all meshed into a multi-sensual art exhibition once its paired with the music—command your attention to the story of this virtually plotless work. The songs are vintage yet futuristic, combining elements of traditional Dick Dale-style surf rock with the experimental, modern indietronica.
As someone who primarily feels in words, it’s rare that I can feel moved by something with little dialogue, but as Mockasin and VanWyngarden pensively strum over the closing shot of the Aurora Borealis cascading down from the Icelandic night sky, I can’t help but get choked up. I’m not a surfer, but the plight of one is easy to understand in Self Discovery for Social Survival—the highs, the lows, the jarring clashes and the triumphant successes. Every shot, and every note that follows, bridges this genre’s decades-long gap between film and noise in an extremely sensible and masterful way. Maybe I’ll never be able to get on a board like my uncle, but with Self Discovery for Social Survival, I don’t think I’ll ever have to; just watching it brings me to that waterlogged state of mind. I can only hope that one day the rest of the world will catch up and feel it too.
