Rich Landers: Festival still worthwhile
The World Tour of films from the Banff Mountain Film Festival came to Spokane last weekend just in time to remind us of underappreciated blessings, such as being alive and generally unmaimed from our outdoor pursuits.
More than 20 movies in three nights at The Bing took crowds of viewers from underground climbs on ice that coats abandoned mine shafts to the heights and wicked weather of Patagonia peaks.
The hard-knock determination and balance of a trick-riding mountain biker marveled the crowd with skills that defy gravity.
A woman offered insight into the fouled childhood that led to her disastrous obsession with sky-diving risk and adrenaline.
One of the most talented climbers in the world flaunted his aptitude for heights by walking across a “high-wire” of one-inch webbing strung between to towering rock pillars. The film showed him scaling vertical rock walls and overhangs with the ease of a housefly before he divulged at least one down-to-earth observation:
It’s critical, he said, to pause and reevaluate goals the moment you approach the pinnacle of proficiency at which you feel invincible.
His film, and several others, were dedicated to friends who had attempted one stunt too many before reassessing their pursuits.
I’ve heard criticism of this year’s festival for being too heavily weighted with shallow films featuring adventurers who are even more self-absorbed than they are skilled.
Some of that feeling stems from the difficulty in licensing festivals films for the World Tour. The very best films often are destined for more profitable venues, such as TV, and therefore not available for the World Tour that goes to theaters.
Other good films don’t show on the World Tour simply because they are too long.
“When you try to create the weeklong Banff Film Festival experience in a night, you can’t show more than one or two longer films,” said Jim Baker, World Tour organizer in Banff.
Of the 24 films licensed for this year’s World Tour, only three were not shown during the three-day stand in Spokane.
“Those three were all 50-minute films, and we just didn’t have time to show them,” said Phil Bridgers of Mountain Gear, which sponsors the event in Spokane.
The amateurish Patagonia climbing film, “La Ventana,” made the tour because festival organizers like to occasionally feature the adventures of Joe Average, Baker said.
Nevertheless, I have a hard time seeing how this film went on tour when “Skiing in the Shadow of Genghis Khan: Timeless Skiers of the Altai,” by Nils Larsen of Republic didn’t even make the cut from the 293 films entered to the 55 shown at the main festival in Banff.
“Apparently they didn’t like the way I mixed stills with video,” Larsen said of his documentary about ancient skiing methods still used in the most remote mountains of China.
Larsen considers that an unfortunate matter of taste. “I’m happy with the film because I feel it tells a story,” he said Wednesday, noting that the 49-minute film is likely to be shown in Spokane this winter. “It focuses on the people and not the Americans traveling over there. That seems to be the rule, nowadays, leaning toward the hedonistic side, and I didn’t want to add to that pile.”
Surprise and disappointment are both part of a film festival experience. Some of the flicks are great, others are dogs – and which one is which varies from person to person.
Just when you might be fed up with a seemingly pointless flick about globe-trotting telemark skiers, your attention will be hijacked by a group of fallible daredevil unicyclists gobbling up extreme mountain terrain.
Film buffs who shun the festival and wait for the best films to come out on TV or DVD are missing the rare chance to mix with an enthusiastic crowd of people who appreciate adventure.
Hearing other people praise or pan a film helps put it in perspective.
Among the notable feedback I heard came from Joe Collins, the long-time Spokane Mountaineers guru of mountain philosophy. He was giving an earful to local Everest and Seven Summits veteran Chris Kopczynski.
The men had been watching some of the top names in extreme sports fly off cliffs, cling to rock nubbins at death-defying heights and flop end-over-end like rag dolls down avalanche chutes with skis careening away like parts from an Indy car slamming into the track wall.
“That stuff’s impressive in some ways, but those guys don’t really know what ‘difficult’ is,” Collins said.
“They’ve never had to live 365 days a year with the same person, work five days a week, pay taxes and be around to raise their kids.”