Rio Breaks

Rio Breaks is an interesting alternative,as a surfing documentary,to the more well known landmark entry,The Endless Summer.It doesn,t quite have the lyrical photography or the exoticism of the earlier work,which showed three lucky white dudes as they travelled around the globe in search of the perfect wave.Here we see two youths of color from Rio,s hilly slum area who escape getting involved in the drug trade that controls their neighborhoods,and instead spend most of their time on several beaches,one of the few places in a city of rich people and tourists that are open and accessible to the poor.One of the beaches in fact,Arpoador,has now become mainly a hang out for the less well off.The boys learn surfing from the older athletes in the hope of making something of themselves,winning a contest,getting a sponsorship.Instead of flying from beach to beach like the heroes of The Endless Summer,they take a bus between localbeaches.Director Justin Mitchell,s approach is fair and is also a contrast to the now badly dated ,patronizing comments about foreign cultures that now mar the otherwise still charming earlier film.