Editor’s Note: #ThrowbackThursdays are a time for reminiscing, looking back on something fondly, and often giving credit to the significant moments in life and in culture that can shape us. Which is why #ThrowbackThursdays are the perfect time for The Inertia to dig out an old VHS or DVD from back in the day and look back on how it changed the way we surf today.
The Movie: Blue Horizon
The Year: 2004
Director/Producer: Jack McCoy
Surfers: Andy Irons and Dave Rastovich
Synopsis: On one side you have Andy, the unstoppable force winning three world titles, stopping at absolutely nothing to win heats. A reporter asks him about his early exit at ‘Chopes and he sarcastically talks about being stoked to travel across the world only to lose his first heat. It kills him when he doesn’t win. It eats at him and makes him uncomfortable with himself. Winning is everything for AI, who is chasing his third world title during filming.
On the other side we have Dave Rastovich. He’s the too-cool-for-school styled out epitome of the soul surfer. He forgoes competition to travel the world hunting down the best waves, surfing whichever trippy board his heart desires… and meditating, in case we didn’t get enough of the hippy granola vibe already. Oh and there’s mermaids. He hangs out with mermaids. Think it, feel it, do iiiittttt.
Why this mattered: Blue Horizon was the classic yin and yang story of surfing to compete and surfing to surf.
In life, Irons’ rock star combination of savant surfing and personal brashness polarized the surfing community like few other public figures. Photos: ASP/Getty
Personally, this movie made Andy Irons my favorite surfer. I don’t think there’s another man whose persona I’ve seen so visibly in his surfing alone. He was a powerful man. Deep. His strength masked his vulnerability. There was a presence Andy carried with him on a wave that very few people ever have the ability to communicate through their surfing. Those were the things I remember most from watching him obsess over taking down Kelly. This was the first in depth look we got at the rivalry between Kelly and Andy beyond the magazines just saying “they don’t like each other”, which to this day is the only time Kelly regularly fell on the short side of anything or anybody. Andy was that great, and this was the film that spelled it out best.
Classic Rasta.
At the same time Andy was chirping at Kelly, Rasta was bringing Chaturanga back. He certainly isn’t the first and only surfer marketed as the “soulful” type, but Blue Horizon played that card with Rasta so much that every frat dude wearing puka shells (puka shells were still kinda in in 2004) immediately made the leap from foam board to 5’8″ vintage twin fins over a two week timeframe. It’s undoubtable that Rasta made throwbacks and old school styled out “flow” en vogue again. He wasn’t the only guy surfing non-standard high performance shortboards, nor was the movement we all see now started solely with this film, but we all loosened up just a tad on the squash tails and thrusters, picked up something with a little more volume from time to time, or one less fin, or maybe even two more fins, and started acknowledging there are many, many different ways to ride a wave well.
