‘Living the dream’ is an idiom far too overused to have any real meaning anymore, but after watching “View From A Blue Moon,” I got a real sense of what ‘living the dream’ looks like.
John Florence and Blake Vincent Kueny’s surfing documentary “View From A Blue Moon” is an adventure montage light on the personality, but heavy on both surfing and beauty. The film follows professional surfer John John Florence around the world to places such as Australia and South Africa.
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This film is about surfing, that’s what 90 percent of the screen time is. While it spans across continents and has a central character, it doesn’t dive into either of those subjects.
Make no mistake though, it may lack depth in story, but when it comes to capturing the beauty of surfing and landscapes there are few films that come close. Florence’s surfing is captured from gorgeously from beneath the waves, from the shore and above from the sky. The unique shots and uplifting music are gracefully put together to form a cinematically stunning scene. The stunts Florence executes, to a layman such as myself in the surfing world, left me in awe and exclaiming my surprise in how Florence executes his precise surfing skills.
The landscape shots that “View From A Blue Moon” captures make up the glue and bring together the film. For the adventure junkie, these are the shots that inspire and amaze.
Ranging from vast islands of green to rocky castle-like beachfronts, there are no settings this movie touches that bore. These landscape shots are what stick out to me as the heartbeat of this lively film. It sets turns the film from a good surfing film to a beautifully synthesized piece of art.
Though a bit heavy on the artfulness in the opening credits, this film is one continual piece of art. It is an hour-long dream, heavy on the visual beauty and clean cut shooting, but lacks much story and path. Florence is introduced and then thrown to the waves, but I feel that’s exactly the point.
“View From a Blue Moon” is a composition of the finest visuals and surfing, and while it lacks a deep narrative, that was never its purpose.
The movie shows the beauty of both the world and the surfing that takes place upon it, and does so to the highest of visual form.
Collegian Outdoor Blogger Troy Wilkinson can be reached online at blogs@collegian.com or on Twitter at @BluMitts.
