A
film review by Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer, January 18, 2008.
Filled
with breathtaking shots of crazed nutballs on skis plummeting down pitched
peaks at high speed, Steep is a
visually exhilarating sports documentary that is also more than a little
exasperating.
These
guys (all but one of the extreme skiers
featured in Mark Obenhaus' film are
men) talk about what they're doing - getting to the trickiest, remotest patches
of the Alps, the Rockies or wherever and then zooming ground ward - as though
there is nothing more meaningful, more profound, more enlightening, for a human
being to do.
As
hugely skilled and fearless as these skiers are, they're huge with
self-importance and hyperbole, too.
But
those are the interviews.
Where
Steep excels (and accelerates) is on
the slopes, as Obenhaus' team of HD-toting camera-folk capture big mountain
skiing stars Bill Briggs, Doug Coombs,
Chris Davenport, Andrew Mclean and Ingrid
Backstrom, zigging, zagging, darting and DROPPING STRAIGHT DOWN some of the
most spectacular snow-covered places in the world. Alaska, British Columbia,
the French Alps, Iceland… the scenery is amazing, and a few of these spots have
never been visited by human beings before, with skis or not.
Along
with the bluster and blather of the interviews, there's considerable drama in Steep, too. An avalanche is recorded on
camera, and the death of one of the big mountain dudes is revealed - just days
after he was filmed saying: Every skier
and every climber knows, the mountains are alive and they'll make you more alive
- or they'll make you dead.
Yikes.
[Steven Rea’s rating: *** out of 4]
Labels:
documentary, sport
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