Continuum 3 3/4

Our town and region pride themselves on their recognition of and patronage of the arts, and as part of that spirit of appreciation of all things cultural the town lays on a film festival every year. In deference to the ground-breaking and revolutionising potential of avant-garde artwork and endeavour, the festival organisers make it a point of honour to give opportunities to new, young, up-and-coming and un-established film makers to showcase their work and reach a wider audience. And good on them, too.

   Since our area here is immersed in surf culture up to its ears it’s only natural that surf movies should be featured in the festival, at times prominently. And since surfing is the thing that we, denizens of The Bay At The End Of The Rainbow, eat, drink, breathe and live for, surf movies is what we look out for and seek out when the festival is on.

   There’s a loose mob of us who are possessed of such single-minded obsession, fanaticism and insanity that we rise several hours before dawn and surf before daylight and daybreak. Often we surf by the light of the full moon, other times we surf by no light at all, and, frequently, crash into rocks or, sometimes, each other, in the pitch black dark on the water. This collection of deranged and depraved madmen is most usually referred to as The Dawn Crew, although the Pre-Dawn Crew would potentially be more accurate, and the Pre-Dawn Lunatics quite possibly more to the point.

   The film festival had come around, and so some of us had stuck our heads together over a cup of tea after a morning’s surfing, and we had identified a viewing session that seemed to offer the required amount of movies revolving around and featuring people manically and beautifully pursuing the noble art of chasing waves around the globe. It’s a pastime some of us have engaged in and

most of the others dream of, and any on-screen documentation of it is wildly and enthusiastically appreciated.

   So a number of us had gathered at The Movie House, and lined up in gleeful anticipation. There was a solid representation of The Crew: The Shredder, tiny tooth-pick-board expert, Chief Switchfoot, ambipodous foot-switch-hopper, The Snake Catcher, scourge of drop-ins and snakes, The Pocket-Rocket Grommit, person with the widest smile on the water, Blue Flame, of legendary Bunsen burner-like fart-lighting capacity, known to start bushfires after a light meal of baked beans, Kiana The Evil Woman, mad, Scottish, alcoholic and violent, and The Baboon, renowned far and wide for pointing his arse proudly skywards. Further afield, attending with members of his family, was The Shaker, whose cool composure, suave sophistication and lethal headbutt were reminiscent of OO7, shaken, not stirred.

   We lined up in a throng, and found that the doors weren’t opening quite yet, because one of the movie-makers, the Resident Artist Trendsetter (or RAT), was conducting a highly specialised sound check before the presentation. We nodded with appreciation for the Artist’s dedication to his Craft, and went off for a drink to while the time away. We found a little table in the cafe somewhere, sat around it and had a yarn. Being a chair short I looked around for another one. Off to my side there was a grumpy looking fat middle-aged bloke, sitting on one chair by himself, with one of his arms slung around the back of an empty, unused chair. So I leaned over to him.

   ‘Goodday mate, how are you? Can we have that chair if you’re not using it?’ I said.

   ‘No. It’s occupied,’ he replied, without looking at me.

   ‘Ah. No worries, thanks mate.’

   We found something else to sit on and concentrated on drinking beer and telling lies and forgot about it, but I did notice that, for all the time we were waiting there for The RAT to get his shit

together, that fella sat there by himself without anyone else using that chair. ‘Strange,’ I thought, and forgot about it.

   Eventually the RAT completed his refined sound check and we shuffled in, excitedly and full of joyful expectation. As is usual at this sort of events, the film makers were attending in person, and took the stage for a bit of a speech before the start of the screening. One bloke talked about his desire to reproduce the imagery seen through the water when bodysurfing. Fair enough, we thought. The second bloke was The RAT. He stood in the middle, puffed his chest out and declared proudly ‘This isn’t really a movie, I prefer to think of it as mental vomit.’ We raised eyebrows quizzically, and, in the case of The Shaker, ironically and sardonically. If that didn’t sound promising. Certainly Very Artistic. The third person talked a bit about travelling around South America, looking for waves. We rubbed our hands in glee. That’s what we were there for.

   The round of speeches over and done with we settled back for the spectacle. The first short movie was a black and white rendition of people body surfing, filmed and shown from inside of the water, and it was beautiful, graceful, eerie, and majestic. Well appreciated and treated to a respectful round of applause.

   The second movie was called Continuum 3 ¾, and it was the work of The RAT.

   Music came on like thunder. It blasted out of the speakers and hit us between the eyes like a brick, then grabbed our eardrums, pulled them inside out, chewed them up and spat them out. My eyes started to water, and my hair parted down the middle from sheer impact. The walls shook visibly. Clearly the RAT had spent his sound-check time wisely, and had got it exactly the way he wanted.

   The screen lit up and showed the top of a mountain. A good-looking mountain, and no mistake about it. It had all the required mountainy bits: rocks all over the place, bits of tired-looking grass here and there, the odd puddle of mysterious-looking,

unfathomable water, precipitous cliffs, and ominous crags. You could hear them creak in the gale blowing around the summit, unless, of course, that was our eyeballs being squashed to pieces inside of sockets crumbling under the onslaught of the music.

   I nodded appreciatively. Nice mountain. Then I settled in happily waiting for the action to start.

   Five minutes later the mountain was still there in all its glaring glory, and the music still sounded like a sample from the horses’ hooves at the Melbourne Cup amplified a million times. The mountain hadn’t changed, and neither had the music. Eventually a cloud appeared on the far side of the mountain. ‘Hah!’ I thought to myself, ‘now the action will begin!’

   It certainly did.

   The cloud approached. For some reason it was purple. Very psychedelic. Five minutes later the cloud was still approaching, although, in all fairness, it had certainly gotten a lot closer. It had almost reached the mountain peak by now. The excitement in the movie theatre was palpable. Would the cloud eventually, finally, succeed in making it all the way to the mountain? I shuffled forwards to the edge of my seat, chewing my fingernails frantically. The suspense was unbearable.

   Another five minutes later the cloud had almost pulled up to the mountain. So close and yet so far. The music had changed slightly, though not noticeably for the better.

   I started to have doubts, and subversive questions rose unbidden up from the murky depths of what passes for my baboon brain. What, if anything, was this supposed to be about, and where was the surf in this? Come to that, where was anything at all in this? What was this cloud’s problem? Was it on Valium? Couldn’t it think of anything better to do?

   I stole a glance to my side. There, on one side of me, was Kiana, my partner, staring fixedly ahead of herself with a strained grin fixed to her face. I nudged her in the right tit gently.

   ‘Ow!”

   ‘Sorry.’

   She rubbed her chest and glared at me. I bent closer to her.

   ‘What’s going on here?’ I whispered.

   ‘Shhh!’ she snapped. ‘Be quiet!’

    I pointed at the screen. ‘This is shit,’ I said under my breath.

   ‘Shhh! You’re not allowed to say things like that!’ And she turned her head back determinedly to the screen, her eyes glazed over and fixed on the cloud. It had started to turn yellow now.

   In the row of seats in front of us, two chairs to the right, a bloke turned around and frowned at me in annoyance. ‘Quiet!’ he hissed, and glared. I recognised the artistic profile of the RAT. He seemed put out.

   Being a polite person I didn’t say anything back, but instead looked to my right. In the chair next to me the Snake Catcher scratched his nose. He pulled at his right earlobe. He drilled his finger into his left ear. He scratched his arse. He wobbled his shoulders. One seat past him Chief Switchfoot squirmed in his seat like he had been tied down with leather bondage straps and he was trying to escape, with little apparent success. Another three seats down from him the Shredder had his head bent over his phone and seemed deeply absorbed in it. I looked a bit further afield. Several people had their phones out. I turned my head to the other side. Phones were out everywhere, and a low, dull murmur started to rise up from the gathered crowd. Here and there people were getting out of their chairs and walking out.

   Finally a voice exploded, just off to my left side.

   ‘ZIS IS SHIT!’

   It was the grumpy looking fella who had needed two chairs to sit on before.

   ‘YOO HAF FOKKED DEE NATURE!!!’ he shouted out loud, in a thick German accent.

   On the screen the cloud had decided it wasn’t going to make it to the mountain before lunchtime, and had given up and gone away. In its place appeared a tree. By all accounts it seemed perfectly content to stand there and do nothing. The music thundered on happily. In a corner of the theatre a deep-scarlet velvet curtain shuddered off its rail and collapsed on the ground in a heap of desperation.

   The RAT in front of me turned around indignantly. ‘Shut up mate!’ he snapped. ‘Show some respect!'

  ‘'Respect my arse,’ retorted the German, ‘zis is absolute shit!’

   ‘What! How dare you!’ The RAT rose up out of his chair and half turned around.

   All around  us people were laughing and catcalling now.

  ‘Turn it off!’ shouted someone in the far corner.

   ‘What is this shit!’ hollered someone else, who turned out to be me. Kiana gave me a death stare. She has an inordinate attachment to observing proper form and manners, and is a stickler for propriety and acceptable behaviour in public, as long, that is, as she doesn’t get her hands on any alcohol.

   ‘Hey guys, let’s like be like cool, maaan,’ came a whiny American voice with a strong Californian accent from a corner somewhere, ‘like this is like arrrrt, you know.’

   ‘Fuck off!’

   ‘Shut up!’

   ‘Get fucked!’

   ‘Go back to America!’

   The Californian ‘s voice dwindled and drowned under the chorus of dissent. Loud booo’s went up everywhere.

   Meanwhile the RAT in front of us was out of his chair and made to climb over it towards the German, shaking his fist furiously at him.

   ‘Right, that’s it mate! You and me, outside, now! I’ll sort you out, arsehole!’ he yelled.

   The German sat rigidly upright in his seat. ‘Zis is a disgrace,’ he said, ‘Zis is scheisse. Yoo haf fucked dee nature!’ He crossed his arms over his chest, or, more accurately, over his beergut.

   “RIGHT!’ bellowed the RAT, ‘I’m gonna fucking kill you!’ He tried to launch himself lengthways at the German, which would have taken him directly across mine and Kiana’s knees. I lifted up my empty beer stubby with relish, ready to clock him one on the head on the way through. Unfortunately two people grabbed him by the arms and pulled him back down again before he could clear the backrest of his seat.

   ‘Let me go! I’m gonna ki– hhmmmpphhhhfffrrllll!’ He had a hand slapped over his mouth and was dragged away kicking and screaming by a woman half his size. He disappeared into the dark off to one side. I followed his exit of the building with my eyes, and noticed that the Shaker with his entire family, as well as Chief Switchfoot, had all disappeared. When I looked over to my left I saw that the German had gone too, along with large numbers of spectators from that side.

   Peace and quiet returned to the movie house, or, at least, the music thundered on uninterruptedly. My ears buzzed and whistled.

   When the movie ended half an hour later, we had been provided with an in-depth study of the ability of trees to stand up straight for a very long time without apparently getting tired and needing a lie-down, had been discreetly introduced to the secret sex-life of

sand, pebbles and rocks, and had been afforded rare and unique insights into the way in which mountainsides are apparently really good at doing nothing and not moving. Surf, waves or swell had not made an appearance, nor had boards, humans, platypuses, wombats, cockroaches or indeed anything else that showed even remote signs of life.

   We staggered out in a daze, suffering from severe nerve-ending death and irreparable deafness, as well as terminal boredom. We shuffled through a virtually empty theatre. In the hallway we found Chief Switchfoot, along with about a hundred other people who hadn’t been able to stomach the show until the end, and who were now standing around comparing impressions, complaining loudly and demanding their money back.

   The RAT or the German were nowhere to be see. Neither was anyone else who appeared to have been involved in the organisation of the movie. The ticket window was boarded up and blocked off with sandbags and barbed wire. A sign in the window, hanging askewif, indicated that the erstwhile occupants had gone fishing and were not expected back till late the following year.

   We filed out into the night with the uneasy feeling that, somehow, we’d been had and the joke was on us.