Running around a fake Stonehenge in Alabama? An underwater shot with a mock human skeleton? Growing a quiver of surfboards from seeds watered with beer and planted in the sand? Not a single one of these images is standard fare in your typical surf movie. And yet, it’s precisely what we’ve come to expect from the comedic (and absurdist) leanings of Gulf Coast surf icon and filmmaker Sterling Spencer.
His latest, Join the Dance, is a surrealist tapestry peppered with a few transcendental lectures by Alan Watts for good measure. Unlike previous efforts from Spencer like Gold the Movie, Join the Dance takes on a serious, heady tone. It’s meant to be a reflection of the man’s mental health struggles in recent years.
“After years of struggling with depression,” he said after the launch of the trailer last fall, “I left the normal everyday society grind and got away to search for happiness in a place I’ve yet to search… Within myself.”
Spencer’s father passed in 2011, which he believes contributed to his depression. Since, he’s had his share of ups and downs – especially after the recent birth of his son that sent him spiraling.
Coping has led him to discover meditation, and find a new outlook on life.
And while the film has no dialogue and therefore no voice overs or other absurd hilarity for which Spencer became known early in his career (no centaurs either!), there are glimmers of surfing’s class clown. Not least of which, a breaking-the-fourth-wall death stare at the five-minute mark in which the man locks eyes with the camera between pier pilings. And the hit-you-over-the-head, “do I look cool with a cigarette in my mouth?” moments.
With the pressure these days to produce high-flying edits at premier surf breaks around the world, the lion’s share all end up looking pretty much the same. Different names, different locations. But turn, barrel, air. Turn, barrel, air.
It’s in that environment that when someone stands up and does something wildly different, they deserve to be applauded. Strange and abstract as it may be, Sterling Spencer may have just launched the most original surf film of the year, and you should watch it. Twice.
