The Art of Flight

The film is a snowboarding production. Travis Rice and the riders with him go to mountains in different parts of the world that most people cannot reach: Alaska, Patagonia, British Columbia and Aspen. The aim is to ride slopes nobody has ridden. Access is by helicopter, the weather keeps changing, and the crew has to wait for days. The narrative is not about competition or records; the subject is the descent itself. Curt Morgan directs. The film dates from 2011 and was made with the support of an energy drink company. What is most striking is the shooting technique; helicopter, sled mounted camera and high speed recording were used together, and a sports film on this scale had rarely been made at the time. Filming spread over two years and the budget was unusually high for the genre. There is avalanche footage as well; in one section the crew is caught in a real avalanche and that recording is used in the film. The narrative structure is weak; the interviews are short and the film consists largely of images and music. It raised the visual standard of snowboarding films and later work was judged against it. Its limit is content; who the riders are and why they do this is not sufficiently described. Who it is for: viewers who like action sports films and mountain photography. Who it is not for: there is almost no narrative, the structure repeats, and the film comes close to a long advertisement.