Entertainment
Surfwise: Refreshing and Challenging
Greg Kaczynski |
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 At first glance, Surfwise appears to simply be a documentary about a crazy old man who, at one point, decided to be a surfer and dragged his family along with him. While those are the facts, Surfwise is a tale for every single one of us, a powerful story about following one’s heart and the unbridled joy and the inevitable backlash for doing so. At a time when our country’s lifestyle lingers on the brink of an unpredictable outcome, this story blows away the accepted myth of the status quo.
Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz’s life began normal enough. He was born to a Jewish family in Galveston, Texas in 1921. When he was 13, his family moved to San Diego where Dorian became an avid surfer. He attended Stanford, got his M.D. and eventually became president of the American Medical Association in Hawaii. Much is made about his strong moral stance on being a doctor--he was of the rare breed who didn’t focus on his benefit more than his patients’. Many in Surfwise recount his utilitarian philosophies, and this, no doubt, had much to do with his incredible success.
His personal life, though, was a failure. Dorian had gone through two divorces and he felt no love for monetary success. Feeling unsatisfied, he gave it all up, left Hawaii, quit the AMA and moved to Israel where he lived in the desert, surviving off of the land for an entire year. While there, he introduced surfing to Tel Aviv and became locked into a new way of life, one focused on eating well, exercise and listening to the truth within his heart.
Determined to understand his failed marriages, Dorian went on a conquest to learn everything he could about the opposite sex (he describes this process infinitely more colorfully in the film), and in the process, met his wife, Juliette. Sparks flew and everything changed. The couple got married and spent the next couple of decades wandering the surf, raising a brood of eight boys and one girl, all 11 of them living in a 24-foot-long camper.
 Surfwise is their story. A family that spent their entire time growing up together outside of the American norm. Dorian, while never sending his children to school or in any way integrating them into society at large, raised his kids under his very strict guidelines of raw diet and exercise. One son describes it as “Doc” never wanting his family to be shown up by a monkey; if he saw a baboon eating an apple and not the skin, then, by God, they would not eat the skins of apples anymore.
The Paskowitzs also became a family of expert surfers, world-renowned in their ability and winning competitions at a time when surfing was exploding onto the popular scene.
Affecting him deeply, Dorian recounts a time during the Holocaust when a picture was published of a Nazi preparing to gun down a defenseless woman and her child. Although he was at the height of his power, he could do nothing to save that woman. This impacted Dorian so deeply, he dedicated his life not just to wellness, but also to be the best Jew he could be, making the religion a cornerstone of his family.
 These facts alone make for a fascinating story: a Jewish surfer family wandering the States, Mexico, Hawaii and Israel, all being raised outside of the system on their own terms. Had the filmmakers ended here, they would have had an interesting tale to recount, but the movie takes an unexpected twist as the filmmakers go on to detail the fallout from the children as they grew older and were inevitably exposed to the materialistic American lifestyle.
As with all families, the kids got antsy, grew up and, to Dorian’s dismay, left the nest to pursue life on their own terms. While they’ve each become successful in their own ways--as rock stars, models, artists, producers, parents--they each share the difficulty they had in trying to have a “normal” life. “Doc” simply finds them lazy and disappointing, as they have set aside everything he’s ever taught them.
There is a real poignancy here as viewers see that no matter how hard parents try to do everything right, there will always be disillusionment. “Doc” Paskowitz traded in every shred of the accepted American dream to raise his family properly and healthfully, only to find that the desire to find what else is out there eventually overrides.
At the heart of the film is Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz, an eccentric man by American ideals: he lived his life as his heart desired, he set aside all of the comfort goods and distractions that we’ve all been consumed by and truly lived his life. “It is easier to die when you have lived,” he says at one point, reminding all of us that while we’re busy suckling the teat of capitalism, working hard to accumulate more junk, we’re letting our lives pass us by. Here is a man who seized his life, rescued it from banality and made it into a daily adventure.
 On the other hand, there are the tales of the children: grown up and living their adult lives, describing dreams fallen by the wayside because of their lack of formal education, describing the difficulties of parenting within society. It is then that audiences realize that to live within this day and age, there needs to be balance, and if there isn’t we risk alienating our bloodline from the rest of the world.
Surfwise is powerful filmmaking, a documentary that speaks to everyone. While the elder Paskowitzs are often shocking in their frankness, their dedication to giving their children the best life that they believed was out there shines through, and the struggles the children go through are painful to watch as this wild family we’ve come to love begins to fall apart. It is a moving and striking piece of work that reminds us all to wake up and live.
Surfwise is now playing at the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles and the Lido Cinema in Newport Beach.
For more information, visit surfwisefilm.com.
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