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"You're not only riding down the mountain, but the mountain is chasing you."
When the words are nearly as evocative as the imagery, you've got a documentary to reckon with, as Stacy Peralta (Dogtown and Z-Boys) does with Riding Giants, a lively, if overly long, homage to big-wave surfing, and the perma-tan who devote entire lives to staying seconds ahead of the ocean's gorgeous, potentially bone-shattering showers of power.
Peralta makes a compelling case for their ardor. Awesome (dude!) footage of tiny men on slivers balanced atop onrushing walls of water would be enough for some, but Peralta is a thorough documentarian with an entertainer's eye. What he assembles here, linked to Sean Penn's surprisingly animated narrationmakes us feel like we're surfing the sport's giddy, chuck-it-all lifestyle. It's an all-consuming existence for those who, as one explains, rejected The Man in the Gray-Flannel Suit take on American life for a sport that for some surpasses mere fun, approaching orgasm, and lifts others to higher spiritual plateaus by challenging these oceanic monsters.