Triptych explores wildly different coasts

Still from 'Triptych' © Michael Kew

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Shawn Tracht reviews new movie by Michael Kew

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 26 November, 2012 : - - Michael Kew’s new movie, Triptych, is a three story compilation from locales around the globe that only pro surfers go to and you and I only dream of...kind of. The waves are world class and dreamy, yet the stories he tells through visual montage make the lands seem a little eerie and tough to travel for someone who may quiver at the thought of traversing through seas where pirates, killer whales, and cannibals lurk.

As for the waves, it’s a mix of frozen tundra of the Pacific Northwest, and the thawing out from that amongst mysterious waves in the tropics of the Arabian Sea and Oceana. What I love most about the video, and why I’ve already bought copies for my brother-in-law and I, is the visual escape from reality as a California boy knows it. Yes, there are a ridiculous amount of perfect crystal blue barrels in the flick, but what I think I love the most is the intermixed clips of foreign cultures. The movie not only expands my sensibility, but it challenges it as well.

The music is groovy. Kew definitely understands what’s essential for a surfer when they buy a surf vid. One scoop of visual ecstasy (good waves), the other a scoop of musical, rhythmical surf sounds. A good surf movie is only good through time if the music is good enough to play on the DVD player all day long while you muddle around the house or in the background at a BBQ for a post-surf hang out with friends. Check and check, both requirements met here.

In final, when you travel with Kew, you take off on long lost adventures to lands that only the pro surfers end up in. They are the places that you see and dream about in the magazines...which is because Kew is the one who writes most of these stories. Besides having written one of the best surf books I’ve ever read, Crossings, this is now Kew’s newest jaunt into the various contemplations and philosophies about the world through visual media. You’ll enjoy this movie for a long time and pass it on to your kids.

See peathead.blogspot.com to purchase the movie and/or Kew’s Book.