The sun does weird things to us. It makes us hot, bothered, and at times, delusional. In Lorcan Finnegan’s new film The Surfer, it gets really hot, and Nicolas Cage’s protagonist – known as ‘the surfer’ – gets really bothered. Set on an idyllic beach on Australia’s Lunar Bay, the film centres around Cage’s character, a businessman desperate to buy his childhood house overlooking the beach as a way of recapturing his youth and reconnecting with his son and ex-wife. But the locals, a gang of toxic blokes brilliantly led by the perma-tanned, perma-intimidating Scally (played by Julian McMahon), have other ideas and don’t want outsiders surfing their turf. “Don’t live ‘ere, don’t surf ‘ere,” is their taunting refrain, humiliating Cage’s character as they steal his surfboard and send him away – send him insane.

As the sun beats down, the surfer’s mind distorts and descends, and Nicolas Cage is at his psychotic best. He’s drinking out of puddles, he’s screaming at everyone and everything, he’s even gnawing on a rat – a scene destined for cult fame. As he loses his mind, he loses his sense of material worth, going on a Jungian journey of self-discovery that only ends once he proves himself to the local surfers and is indoctrinated into their cult. Through distorted lenses, psychedelic colour work, shimmering soundscapes and exploitation-style angles, as an audience, we’re pulled into the heatwave trip and left wondering what’s real and what’s a sunstroke mirage. Following the film’s acclaimed Cannes premiere, we speak to director Lorcan Finnegan about his vision for the story and how Nicholas Cage truly turned up the heat.

Alex James Taylor: I loved The Surfer, it’s such a trippy, immersive experience. Can you take us back to when you first read the script by Thomas Martin – what were your initial ideas for translating it to screen?
Lorcan Finnegan: It started as a couple of pages Tom sent me years and years ago. Then we put it into a kind of deck and gathered images and stuff like that. We were both seeing it as this very sun-beaten, existential, psychological thriller that takes place across a few days. Then when the actual screenplay was written, I was reading through and thinking it was surprisingly funny the way all this stuff was piling on top of this character. I remember thinking that it could be great to shoot in a very subjective way, like we’re with the character the whole time: we learn what he learns, and as it gets hotter and hotter the audience feels that, when he becomes delirious and delusional and isn’t sure who he is anymore, the audience also feel that. That was the entry point for me to think for the look of it, the edit, the production design, everything – coming at it from his mental perspective.

AJT: Yeah, at times it feels a bit like a theatre production, watching this character go on a journey in this distinctive location. When I watched it, The Wizard of Oz came to mind, because of the emerald colours cast across the beach, the glittering chimes, and the way Nicolas’ character looks at the beach as this wondrous place.
LF: It’s interesting that you mention the The Wizard of Oz, I keep forgetting to reference that because it was, you know, he’s always trying to get down to this beach hut and follow his yellow brick road, which is a little sandy path, and find out what’s behind the curtain. And when he does, he understands it’s this weird cult. There’s actually a scene in the film we shot where all the guys lean over Nic and reveal themselves, which was shot through the water. I remember the producers and even Nic was kind of concerned that it could have been done in a very corny way, but I always knew I wanted it to be quite surreal and the way I explained it was a little bit like in The Wizard of Oz where after Dorothy wakes up, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man and all that are leaning over the the bed and she’s like, “And you were there, and you were there.”

“[Nicolas Cage] responded to the Kafka-esque nature of the story.”

AJT: Can you can you tell me more about the soundscape, those soft chimes really add to the psychedelic, heatwave aspect, like little mirages.
LF: The score is composed by Francois Tetaz, an Australian composer. We wanted to create this sort of nostalgic, dreamlike quality to the place and also, some of his compositions are based on the rhythms of waves and how they go in sets and then crash, and you know, how the white foam on the sand is sort of shimmery. We also mixed up the sound design work with a sound designer called Aza Hand, who did my first film, we recorded sounds of humans making the noises of birds, we got a lot of cast to do this, and I did some as well. Weird bird calls and animal calls, which we then bent and twisted and put them into the sound design, along with cicadas that we mixed with musical symbols. So the score and the sound design envelop the whole film really to create this sort of weird space that is sometimes calm and relaxing, and sometimes overwhelming and threatening.

AJT: It really adds to the atmosphere. In terms of the heat wave element, you really created that sense of claustrophobia and burning, sun-beaten atmosphere. What references did you pull from to create that?
LF: I don’t really know if there are any particular film references [in terms of the heat], but there’s obviously a lot of that heat in new wave Australian films that inspired the whole story: A Long Weekend, Wake in Fright, The Last Wave, Peter Weir’s films, Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout. I mean, it’s hot on those movies, but it’s not really heat. Schumacher’s Falling Down is interesting in terms of how they use colour and sweat, actually also Sorcerer by William Friedkin, where the characters are very sweaty, almost oily with sweat when they go into the jungle. It was more like, how do you make the place feel hot, you know? And we did that through lens flare, through using heat bars – like flame bars underneath the camera to create heat distortion – also colours, there’s a lot of hot colours used in the film and basically no cool colours except for the sea and the sky. Then I used a perspex mirror sometimes that we’d shoot into and bend so it looked like he’s becoming like a mirage – the way heat will distort and create mirror-like reflections. We used all of those tools as well as the make-up and wardrobe, the sweat and blood, and there was like a shitload of flies there as well, which helped.

AJT: I assume it was hot when you were filming?
LF: It wasn’t that hot until maybe the last two weeks. So we had to make it seem hotter than it was.

“I think people in general can relate to the idea of being trapped…”

AJT: And how quickly did you get Nicolas Cage on board – how did that happen?
LF: We sent the script to his manager who [sent it to Nic]. Nic had seen Vivarium and liked it, so he was like, “Oh, it’s the guy who made Vivarium, I might dig this.” He read it and then he watched The Curse [another of Finnegan’s films] and we jumped on a call. We got on really well and were into the same kind of films. He responded to the Kafka-esque nature of the story and said it reminded him of The Overcoat, a Russian film he saw when he was a kid about a character getting back his coat, like [the surfer] is trying to get back his surfboard. So he responded to it and came on board, and then we made it quite quickly. It was only a year between him saying he’d do it and us showing at Cannes.

AJT: You mentioned Vivarium, there are similar themes of feeling trapped, grappling with a sense of home. Do you see these films relating at all?
LF: People say that to me, but I didn’t really think about it. I suppose Imogen’s [Poots] character in Vivarium is kind of getting lost in this place, it’s quite disorientating and you get the feeling of being trapped and being delirious. And my first film, Without Name, Olga’s [Wehrly] character is lost in the woods. I enjoy the challenge of making these locations, creating worlds through colour, visual language and design, so that the audience gets immersed. I think people in general can relate to the idea of being trapped, and that doesn’t mean trapped physically, but in patterns of behaviour, in relationships, in a job. And you know, life, being physically trapped inside these fleshy bodies. [laughs] I think it’s a universal feeling. Nic’s character in The Surfer has trapped himself there in a way, he’s mentally trapped himself.

AJT: I also find it interesting when films don’t give a name to their lead character, and Nic’s character is simply known as ‘the surfer’, which makes me think of biblical, philosophical names, like ‘the teacher’ or ‘the preacher’.
LF: That’s something that attracted Nic to the film. I found out a couple of weeks ago that when he saw the title was The Surfer, he was like, “Who the hell is this?”

AJT: And it also tricks you into thinking that it’s a surf movie, which I mean, it kind of is, but also really isn’t.
LF: We were also inspired by Frank Perry’s The Swimmer, which is a great title and, you know, that film isn’t really about swimming.

AJT: Absolutely, you can see the parallels. Your use of colour is really interesting, from Scally’s red robe to the flashes of greens, yellows and reds. How did you use colour to help tell the story?
LF: I put together a kind of book for myself in prep for the film, linking colour. I mean, I love Hitchcock’s Marnie, the use the colour in that film. and colour theory in general. I can’t remember all the stuff that I did, to be honest, but it was like, yellow is related to Nic’s father and his past, so that’s in the brochure, and the surfboard, and elements like that. Then his car and his clothes are the same colour as the sand, connecting him to the beach. The turquoise water is very dreamlike and evocative of nostalgia and memory. Then the photographer [character], she wears green because she’s much more from the place, she’s actually the only indigenous person in the film. Her car is the same colour as her wardrobe. There are things like that throughout the film. Julian’s [McMahon] red cloak, or towel-hoody was inspired by an El Greco painting called The Disrobing of Christ, where Jesus is depicted wearing a red robe because red is a very royal colour – but it’s also the colour of the devil, so there’s this ambiguity in Julian’s character. Then Nic changes into this blue robe after he’s gone down to the beach, he’s been baptised and he’s carried away like he’s been crucified. The whole story is also taking place over Christmas. There are these themes of rebirth and redemption. It’s not actually a religious movie, but some of the iconography and symbolism were interesting to include in the visual language.

AJT: It’s a universal, human story – there’s a sense of purgatory, of being a limbo, and then being stripped of your earthly goods.
LF: Exactly, and the very end of the film, to me, it’s this release.. the shadow of the wave coming across him.

AJT: Do you have experience surfing?
LF: I’ve surfed a bunch of times, but I’m not very good. I thought I was going to have all this time in Australia and would come back from Australia as an amazing surfer, but I was too busy making a film. [both laugh]

AJT: How about Nic?
LF: Yeah, he’s surfed in the past and he did some lessons at the very beginning just to get back used to paddling out and popping up on the board. I went out with him but I didn’t want to take any time away from him doing his thing, so I just paddled about while he took lessons. Then he got up on the board and surfed away within about two or three hours – total natural.

The Surfer is in UK and Irish cinemas now.