Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
Written & Directed by Sunny Abberton Produced by Sunny Abberton & Michael Lawrence Director of Photography & Edited by Marcario De Souza Music by Jamie Holt Released by Berkela Films Australia. 84 Minutes. Rated R Narrated by Russell Crowe
Just 20 minutes from Sydney Airport is the hardscrabble community of Maroubra Beach, which has
grabbed international headlines for its brawls and brawny championship surfers. Bra Boys explores this masculine stronghold through the
autobiographical prism of the four Abberton brothers – writer/director/producer Sunny, Koby, Jai, Dakota, and their surf tribe.
Russell Crowe’s narration provides historical background on the development of the low-income housing developments boxed in between a sewage treatment
plant, rifle range, and prison – a reminder of the neighborhood’s rising crime and drug use, which ensnared the brothers’ parents. Fiercely protective
of each other, they and many other local boys were left to reconstitute themselves as a family on the rocky shore with surf so strong that the
aboriginal-derived name means “Beach of Thunder.”
Placing his Bra Boys as part of the history of efforts by authorities to restrict surfing, from the aborigines vs. the colonists
on, Sunny makes the case of how they are peacefully multicultural when left on their own, compared to how the media portray the various surf tribes
as violent and racist gangs. He showcases the aggressively raw male rites of passage in home movie-like familiarity, from the elaborate tattoos, to
bloody bare-knuckled fights, high diving from cliffs while set on fire, and generally very hard partying.
His brother Koby insists that it is the nature of this tough environment that has produced spectacular professional surfers. This context enriches
Bra Boys compared to other surfing documentaries, which usually show the ooh and ah-worthy feats without much of the motivation behind barely
distinguishable, tanned daredevil braggarts. The second half of this film soars as the entwined forces in the brothers’ lives come into dynamic
focus.
First one, then another brother is dragged into a legal nightmare surrounding the shooting death of a volatile drug dealer. The film then ricochets
between Koby’s tense court appearances and the exhilaration of his go-for-broke pursuit of the biggest waves from Hawaii to Fiji and then back home,
where he fights off his fears that he might be facing his last opportunity to experience the freedom of the open waves.
Even with English subtitles for the interviews with brother Jai, there are still plenty of other
thick Aussie accents for an American ear to acclimatize, let alone local slang, geographical distinctions, and surfing terms to assimilate. Not the
least is a segment placing the Bra Boys within totemic Australian larrikin culture as rebels with or without a cause. Crowe has often been labeled an
exemplar of that tradition (and is planning to direct a fiction feature film based around the Abberton brothers).
While Jim Holt’s loud frenetic
score is unrelenting, it effectively captures the Boys’ intense testosterone-fueled camaraderie. (Other than their drug-addicted mother, saintly
grandmother, and the supportive mothers of the brothers’ young teen surfing protégés, women are barely mentioned or glimpsed.) While it shares some of
the same feel as Stacy Peralta’s surf-and-skateboard documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, Bra Boys has more
contemporary immediacy and in-depth intimacy.
Nora Lee Mandel
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