Hot Buttered Soul is an alternative surf film with the kind of poetically resonant title which immediately makes you think of classics such as ‘Lines of a Poem’ or ‘Glass Love’. In this case, the title is borrowed from Isaac Hayes’ groundbreaking 1969 record ‘Hot Buttered Soul’, which also spawned the name for Terry Fitzgerald’s surfboard company which is evidently the focus for this film.

Hot Buttered Soul features surf footage from decades of the extended Hot Buttered family, including Terry Fitzgerald himself and his sons. It’s a strange thing to watch much of the recent fashionable power surfing style at its most fresh in the 70s. However, in a weird and shameful way the similarity in style makes me feel slightly short-changed by the action as we’ve become so accustomed to seeing footage of the unbelievably precise (if not at times the arguably mechanical) modern professionals. Nevertheless, any ardent Mick Waters, Andrew Kidman or Terry Fitzgerald fan will quickly get over any sense of disappointment with this film.

So let’s not be too critical – Hot Buttered Soul is still miles ahead of most of the surf films that come out these days. It’s amazing to watch the HB crew during their sessions in New South Wales in the late 80s, and there is one left-hand wave that Joel Fitzgerald rides (I believe at Periscopes, Indo, before the crowds arrived) that is worth the price of the film alone. It is a wonderful balance of the wave’s epic power and beauty and the surfer’s style and grace, who rides out of a bomb after what seems like an eternity. You’ll know what I mean when you buy the film – unforgettable.

Other than that, in direct comparison to Mick Waters’ classic surf film ‘Believe’, Hot Buttered Soul is perhaps slightly less intellectual in nature with less narrative progression. Rather, it acts more as a load of surf footage with the odd bit of inspirational comment and dedication to Terry Fitzgerald interwoven within. Indeed, when there is commentary, it is definitely worth listening to, as when Derek Hynd speaks of his profound relationship with an HB board: “here is an inanimate object giving me soul, and it’s a blowout of a feeling. No surfer on today’s tour can get that”.

Even more unique to this film is the soundtrack – one unedited take by musicians such as ex Tamam Shud guitarist Tim Gaze and surfer/musicians Neal Purchase Junior and Andrew Kidman. The soundtrack is as timelessly cool, albeit different, to the soundtrack to Louis Malle’s film Lift to the Scaffold which was recorded by Miles Davis famously in one session specifically for the film.

All in all, the film is ideal for the surf connoisseur. The film is a worthy tribute to Fitzgerald and his boards, and is loaded with soul – like the Hot Buttered sticks themselves – and provides those vital audio and visual vitamins for when you’ve been out of the water too long.

For more Mick Waters you can read a review of Believe or Little Black Wheels

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