I remember it used to be the Severn tidal bore that they were always attempting to ride, but presumably this is now viewed as small beer. The first time I saw this painting I was transfixed by it, and remained gawping for hours until forcibly removed by the staff.The word is that avid surfers have been quick to claim that had they been in the Indian Ocean in the right place, at the right time, they wouldn't have hesitated to try and ride the tsunami I don't doubt it. As I grew, so the wavy representations washed over me: Peter Weir's The Last Wave, in which an Aboriginal juju summons a tsunami to devastate Sydney; Kathryn Bigelow's Point Break, in which maverick surfers pull bank jobs in order to finance their quest for the ultimate, gnarly experience; and even John Martin's The Fall of Babylon, a 19th-century vision of the apocalypse as a watery tumult, spumy masonry and stony whirlpools. As a child I imagined death itself in the guise of one, rising up out of the shallows of the North Sea and tilting the Thames Valley region into its own basin.
According to the Tao there can be little distinction between the surfers and the wave, when it comes to intentionality.Personally, great waves have always scared the shit out of me. In Japan, where tsunamis are frequent, they have no problem with wavy art - but then this is a culture where the meaningful coexistence of savagery and beauty is, perhaps, better understood. The soundtrack accompanying this feat is a mounting crescendo of bass and drums. Resolution comes: the surfers gain the beach, the stallions subside into undertow, the tap drips its final dark jewel of Guinness and the glass is set up for our adoration.I think the reasons this advert is so admired have nothing to do with Guinness itself.
The surf, the stallions - they are both wild aspects of a world to be tamed - and when they are we rejoice with a tall glass of dark ale. "Surfers" is a timeless evocation of humankind's Promethean urge to master natural forces. The surfer bests the wave, sliding down its great, dark flank in a white spume of spray. Shadowy stallions tossing their manes begin to emerge - in a subliminal kind of way - from the breaking wall of water, and yet our man holds his course and even manages to strike some attitudes. "The surfers" television commercial for Guinness was voted - by members of the public who, bizarrely, care enough about these things - The Best Advert of All Time. But I too found it compelling, and in the wake of the hideously destructive tsunami I find myself pondering again why it is that this filmkin should have such a visceral appeal. For those of you not familiar with it, "Surfers" is, as its title suggests, a seconds-long drama in which a brawny young man - together with his sinewy pals - catches a massive wave. And I mean massive: if this were a real-life wave it would require a 9.4 Richter Scale-earthquake to generate it.
