Ocean Tribe

first of all, this movie is not your average adventure or surfing movie & if you look at the plot,its not anything earth-shattering either. but once you start seeing it, you'll be hooked & you are in for a real treat that deals with life, friendship & death from the viewpoint of a regular 25 year old.

the movie starts in a rather 'normal' way, as a bunch of old friends get together after a long time & prepare for a surfing trip. but they also have a friend who has cancer & is terminally ill, living in hospital. So what do they do? very simple, they decide to include him & give him a time of his life. the trip itself is the body of the movie, & to say the truth, nothing out-of-ordinary happens in the trip. but the friends keep discovering each other, they do things that friendship calls for, they meet some people in their trip. & WITHIN these NORMAL activities, you, along with them, get to feel what life, death & friendship is really all about. then there is some transcendent moments that will touch your soul deeply & leave big impacts.

i saw this movie in zee studio channel at 1:00AM in the morning. i thought the movie deserved a far better slot but once i searched it in the internet, i found that this indie film didn't even got a distributor in USA! i consider myself lucky to see this film. if you get the chance to see it, don't miss it.

This is not a superb piece of movie with winning performances (by the way, acting may leave a little to be desired) and this isn't either the kind of film to relax to and have a few laughs with, but it makes sit back and evaluate lives and personal relations. Shot very cheaply but far solid in terms of message brought, it becomes one of the deepest film I've ever seen, maturing as the plot develops and having an original finale. Location's really great, coz the flick is set in what Americans consider the best places of Californian coast. The music as well is suitable for this sad storyline and though these almost unknown actors couldn't make a blockbuster movie, they finally succeeded in greatly describing friendship, hope and death.

This film has a lot to recommend it: buddies examining what friendship really means, great location filming, surfing, dolphins, even exotic rituals. Oh yeah, there's a life and death struggle too.

Ocean Tribe takes a concept that could have become a cliched road trip and gives it real depth and warmth. The basic plot is simple enough: Bob has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Noah (Gregg Rainwater) assembles the old group of high school buddies and they set out to give their friend one more grand surfing adventure. And somewhere along the way, they all discover more about their own strengths and weaknesses, and about what their friendship really means.

This movie is far and away better than a lot of what makes it to the screen these days. It's a shame it's not even available on video in the U.S. (I had to get the DVD from Italy -- it's available there and in Japan.)

I saw Ocean Tribe at the 1998 Bangkok Int'l Film Festival in Thailand. The reason it caught my eye in the listings was that I had a friend who was an avid surfer and another friend who was from Mexico, so I thought a movie about friendship, surfing and Mexico would be tailor-made for us. :)

The movie had a tremendous impact on me. Especially the cinematography and the well thought-out message impressed me. Considering the low budget and unknown cast, this really was an ace of a film. I would classify it as a road movie and a buddy movie.

Some people might consider some scenes a bit too melodramatic, and things like the dolphin parallel (a group of dolphins always tries to keep a dying member afloat as long as possible) might not be for everyone's tastes, but I personally thought they were dealt with delicately. The characters were somewhat stereotypical, but not too much to ruin my enjoyment.

This was one of those films that leave everyone in the movie theater sitting silently in their seats as the credits roll on the screen. Just for the feeling I had at that moment, I've got to give Ocean Tribe a 10 out of 10.