Review: My Eyes Won’t Dry

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I know it’s been out for a while but I stuck My Eyes Won’t Dry 2 on over a romantic supper for one and felt the insatiable urge to stream my emotional upwelling direct to your brain. The things I do.

This is a great DVD for three reasons:

  1. If a non-surfer ever asks you why you surf, play about five random minutes of this film”s deep tubular vision to them. Enough said. Did I just say “tubular”?
  2. If you ever question why you surf, play the same five minutes to yourself.
  3. If you want to get better at barrel riding then let Brian Conley show you how. You’re with him in the tube on every wave, feeling every tiny tweak and weight shift – and more importantly willing him towards the light. “Follow the light, Brian. Follow…” (I am imagining saying this in the voice of Charlie the Unicorn”s pals. Weird. I digress.)

What makes My Eyes Won’t Dry 2 even more special is that you don’t get bored. It is mesmerising. Despite some crimes against surf fashion (I’m looking at you,yellow rashie) and the fact that it is obviously filmed on a budget this is a classic production and a niche that Brian Conley deserves to own. Watching him charge everything from Teahupoo death slabs to Central American A-Frame delights you realise how comfortable this man is in the green (and blue, and sometimes brown) room. What is best about it is that Brian seems like a normal, stoked, stereotypical surfer guy. He is blonde, brown and does the shaka at every opportunity – almost as if he’s never seen a camera, despite having just navigated a twelve foot cavern in two feet of water with one strapped to http://www.phpaide.com/?langue=fr&id=17 his head.

The film starts with left-handers which are sick. You get to study Brian’s flawless, sultry smooth technique as he slips behind an array of translucent blue curtains. Then the action really begins when he hits Australia and starts going right. Brian makes the unmakeable, gets multiple shacks on single waves and you get to see the inside of God’s palace from all angles: head cam, back of the board, nose of the board, hand held.

There was a moment where all my willpower was calling out to Brian to do just one turn. C’mon Brian, just one. But then I realised that I want Dane Reynolds to do turns, not Brian Conley. I want Brian to catch my barrels, Dane to do my turns and Occy to make me laugh. And I’ll just get fat and drink beer until I realise it’s too late and then my eyes won’t dry.

This is a charming, simple and beautiful film. It is the perfect gift for the surfer in your life, whether that happens to be your partner, your offspring or yourself. Stick it on when you’re chilling with a big fat one (and by that I mean me) and bliss out.

P.S. I was going to write about how Brian gets ejaculated from some of the pits with the gargantuan force of Neptune”s biggest, dirtiest load but thought that was just too wrong to publish.