Ordinarily you don’t expect emotional depths from a surfing documentary. But I suspect that Savage Waters is not the surfing doc that director Mikey Corker set out to make. The story begins when Matt Knight, a sailor and surfer in his 50s, reads a book written by Victorian adventurer EF Knight (no relation): an account of an 1890s voyage to find Spanish gold rumoured to buried in the rocks of the Savage Islands, a small Portuguese archipelago in the North Atlantic. What catches Knight’s attention is his namesake’s two-page description of the epic waves off the islands – narrated beautifully here by Charles Dance in a voice so deep and rich it could lure you on to the rocks.
So Knight organises an adventure to the islands, hunting not for treasure, but waves that have been surfed. He’s joined by Andrew Cotton, a plumber-turned-big wave surfer, and Knight’s regular crew his family, consisting of wife Suzanne and, at various times on rotation, their four grownup kids. Without giving too much away, the adventure does not go according to plan.
And with it the film changes focus, becoming a tender portrait of the Knights, a family who – without getting too cheesy – seem blessed with great happiness. Knight and Suzanne raised their kids on adventure; it’s not all been plain sailing, says Suzanne. Their attitude to risk, when the children were small, was not always on the same page. There’s an old clip of Matt reversing a campervan on to to some rickety contraption somewhere remote-looking; Suzanne stands by looking anxious and one of the children, off camera, pleads: “Dad. Please don’t.” But it worked: the kids have grown into curious and fearless individuals. As a family their passion for living life is lovely to watch. Corker may not have intended to make a film about the Knights, but he struck gold.
• Savage Waters is released on 27 October in UK and Irish cinemas.
