Point of Change

Surfing may seem the most innocuous of pastimes, but there is a dark side to riding the waves of the ocean. As we soon learn through Rebecca Coley’s moving documentary, Point of Change, surfing can have disastrous consequences for those fighting for the preservation of their natural habitat.

In the early 70s, former hippies Kevin Lovett and John Geisel set out for Indonesia in search of an idyllic environment for their surfing passion. The pair set their sights on the island of Nias, located off the western coast of Sumatra. What started as a rebellion against the misogynistic machismo of Australian surfing culture (as Lovett puts it) eventually turned similarly toxic.

Their youthful idealism soon leads to the previously tranquil island becoming a tourist hotspot, with the surfers’ increasingly destructive excursions ravaging the natural environment of the small island (when they first arrived in Nias, wary locals feared that the Dutch colonisers had returned). The very language that Lovett uses – of “discovering” Nias – is eerily reminiscent of colonial expedition, as is the notion that the waters were simply waiting there to be utilised by white visitors.

The direction is luminous and lush, with scenic cinematography interspersed with plaintive animation and archival footage of the surfers. Coley allows the landscape to speak, which is symbolic given that the invading surfers viewed the waves as little more than a conquest. Where the documentary falters, however, is in never getting to the heart of the imperialistic and capitalist ruination of the island.

A few of the once quixotic surfers reflect on their naiveté in venturing onto the island in the first place, but it’s ultimately a surface-level probe into a much more problematic, and indeed pervasive, issue. Some liken the commodification of Nias to a paradise lost, but one can’t help but wonder whose paradise: the land that the natives had long inhabited or that which the Westerners sought to gatekeep before it succumbed to a colossal carbon footprint? But the filmmakers are well-meaning, and, in the era of over-tourism, Point of Change is an otherwise poignant exploration of environmental colonialism.

Antonia Georgiou

Point of Change is released in select cinemas on 30^th August 2024.

Watch the trailer for Point of Change here: