Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz, whose clan is the subject of Doug Pray's insightful, free-roaming but tautly constructed "Surfwise," had timing on his side, to a large extent.

During those years when Paskowitz was begetting and be-surfing his eight sons and one daughter — raising them with wife Juliette while roaming about in a 24-foot camper in search of great waves — he was a herald of the '60s counterculture.

Pray, whose previous documentaries include "Hype!" (about the Seattle grunge scene), "Scratch" (about hip-hop DJs) and "Big Rig" (about long-haul trucking), has shown a talent for submergence in subject. But wrangling the phenomenal Paskowitz story must have been like trying to orchestrate the ocean, with stories crashing in on each other like waves: eight brothers, each an opera unto himself, and a sister about whom a Lifetime miniseries probably could be made.

The familial differences of opinion are treated, to put it mildly, frankly and openly. And the viewer is given the distinct impression that not all wounds are healed by time.

One of the gifts the Paskowitzes gave Pray was a wealth of Super 8 and video footage. With it, Pray has confected a rather beautiful portrait, interlacing a Kodachrome palette and the occasional angry red outburst.

Dorian Paskowitz may have been a visionary of sorts, but his children seem to harbor few illusions. Their mother, as she wearily recalls at one point, was either pregnant or breastfeeding for 10 years without letup; that the parents had sex every night was more than obvious to their children, none of whom was deaf and all of whom still cringe at the memory.

"Surfwise" is about keeping one's equilibrium within a social structure that depends on unity while everyone is learning to be an individual. It could be almost any family, or nation, although in the case of the Paskowitz unit everything was made a little bigger, more intense: the overpopulation, lack of space, problems of adolescence, hygiene; the food, clothing and shelter. Otherwise they're like any of us. They're just more expert surfers.