I’ve just watched Stephanie in the Water. A documentary about 5x time surfing world champ.
There are lots of bits that I did like but there was not much new about Steph for anyone who’s followed her career a little bit. The movie barely scratched the surface. Well, I don’t know what’s involved in filmmaking but it was a bit like…Ye let’s get some surf-footage of Steph together with some nice soundtrack, show a bit of the surf circuit and throw in a few scenes were she’s a bit thoughtful and voila we’ve got a Stephanie in the Water movie. There were some bits where got a bit of a glimpse of Steph but every time I thought it would go somewhere interesting it stopped again. For example, I could really relate to her after she tried to get back into the water after the attack. She mentioned how she lost her rhythm with the ocean. I felt the same way when I had an accident and was out of the water for 6 weeks. All I wanted to do is get back in the water to wash off the trauma of the accident but you can’t and then when you can get back you feel like you’ve lost something. It’s like Steph said: It’s like he’s tried to knock the happiness out of me.
The other bit that would have been interesting to find out more about life on the pro circuit and what it’s like being a pro-surfer. It’s kind of interesting if you think of it. All the ladies live and travel together all year round. They would be really close one could imagine but then really they are competitors. Again it started to touch on that subject but then didn’t go much more into detail. That must do your head in.
One thing I never quite realised is how young all the girls on tour are. It’s crazy. Steph at the time of the movie was 23 and she was considered old. Insane. But I guess if you really look into it, that’s the case with most professional athletes these days.
I loved the surf footage. As always it’s such a pleasure watching Steph surf. And I loved the bits where her personality did come through. You can tell that Steph is a gorgeous young lady with a lot of depth to her. There is definitely more behind Steph than the smiley surfy girl we tend to see. There were some interesting thoughts she had and I almost wish I could have jumped through the screen and keep on chatting to her and ponder about some of the life’s questions she put out there.
To me it seemed like the movie tried to show all the different facets of Steph but in doing so it almost tried to show too many sides without going into detail and it fell a bit flat…or maybe it was me just being tired as I watched the movie with a full lunch belly ;-)
I have to say it’s so good to see how far the surfing industry has come in the last 10 years. We now finally have a surf documentary that stars a female surfer. About time, cheers to that Steph :-)
It’s available on iTunes or you can get it on www.stephanieinthewater.com
Enjoy,
Claudia x
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