John John Florence rocks. His energy, youthful joy of surfing and dedication inspire me. What comes when this individual mixes his astonishing surfing skills with love to filmmaking? A movie which has been named the greatest surf movie of all time even before it has been officially released.

„View From A Blue Moon” has been released on December 1st 2015. It’s premiere was preceded by an awesome trailer and pretty wide media coverage.

So, if you haven’t seen it yet here’s my list of totally subjective reasons why you should.

  1. Absolutely beautiful and breathtaking pictures. Brain Farm team did a splendid job.
  2. Great selection of music – you can feel it in the trailer and the movie only complements this feeling.
  3. Surfing paired with the spirit of travel – apart from watching John John and his friends surfing in different locations you’ll get to see a bigger picture of places they visited (one of my favourite is Europe and Brasil).
  4. John John’s aerial maneuvers – he’s definitely one of the best in the world in this art.
  5. The Pipeline part of the movie – last stop on John John’s journey in this picture. It’s the perfect combination of music, power and danger of the wave and the atmosphere this place gives.

There was one thing which, after a while, I would say was contrived. Surfing parts of the film are separated by brief, somewhat abstract inserts. They are a bit reflective, slow. I had this feeling that they interfere with the dynamic climate of the surfing parts. It is possible that that was the idea – to give a clear gap between the successive parts. For me however this change of pace was unnecessary.

I also have to add that there have been some problems with 4K and HD version of the movie. I bought my copy on iTunes and I was unpleasantly surprised that it’s actually only a SD version (although I paid for HD). I hope they solved this problem.

All in all SD or HD it doesn’t matter – „View From A Blue Moon” is a fine piece of surfing and filmmaking art. Get it, watch it and be inspired.