Permanent links
Daily links
Journal sitefeed
Movies sitefeed
del.icio.us sitefeed
RSS
31 March 2005
Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour
Last night, Abhishek, Tejaswi and I were at the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour Pasadena stop. Every year during the first week of November, Banff plays host to a bevy of filmmakers/adventurers who showcase their films in the annual Banff Mountain Film Festival. This year, as many as 330 films from around 90-odd countries were entered into the competition. In addition to the film festival at Banff, there is also a "world tour" where some of these movies are taken on the road and shown in different places in North America and a few other countries. Thanks to the efforts of the Caltech Alpine Club and the local Patagonia store in Pasadena, the film festival has been making a regular stop in Caltech over the past few years. Initially, I was not too keen on attending the film festival since the idea of viewing a series of short films in one sitting did not appeal to me. I am glad I followed my dictum of overriding first impulses.The series opened with a breathtaking 13-minute film titled Psicobloc. It documents a very bizarre form of pure rock-climbing where climbers climb up angular faces of cliffs by the side of the sea but with no belay or rope. So, one misstep and off they go splashing into the sea having to start all over again like the spider in the cave in the tale of Robert the Bruce of Scotland. One scene where the lead climber must make a sharp upward lunge to grab hold of two small pockets drew gasps and wheezes from the audience when at the first attempt he had fingers crying out for purchase on one of the pockets while the rest of him was leaning over backwards to take the plunge into the waters. Of course, there was a huge round of cheering when he tried for a second time and dramatically grabbed onto the rock and did not let go. At that point I knew the wait to get one of the seven remaining tickets for the show and collecting by Ramo Auditorium a full 40 minutes before the show was scheduled to begin was worth it. Of course, had I known from the beginning what lie in store following Psicobloc I would have merely shrugged all through those 13 minutes.
The show continued after Psicobloc to a movie on mountain-biking which shone the spotlight on a group of veteran biking enthusiasts and filmmakers as the bikers careered and swung in and out of hiking trails and city sidewalks, using bridges, pine trees and bike rails as props for their dazzling array of stunts.
Note: *Spoilers*
This was followed by 51 minutes of magical, powerful and visceral self-discovery. Alone across Australia tells of the harrowing exploits of Jon Muir who trekked nearly 2500 kilometres from the South-Eastern coast of Australia upto Burketown in the North. Jon Muir dropped out of school early in order to realise his ambition of climbing Mt Everest. A brief look at his exploits will tell you that between his first successful ascent of Everest in 1988 and his 2001 odyssey, he seldom put his feet up to read the papers. In 2001, he alongwith his Jack Russell terrier Seraphine embarked on what ultimately ended up being a 128-day journey through the Aboriginal history of Australia, through its dingo country, through its vanishing salt lakes, through the rabbit-proof fence, through ghost-towns and abandoned cars, through the heaviest rainfall in 14 years and through hundreds of kilometres with water to drink from a quickly parching puddle of brown, slaked water. In his own words, his journey taught him to live as a simple creature, off the soil of his homeland and her wildly uneven bounty. Watching scene after scene after this great man and his great companion trudge with their sleigh of tent, sleeping bag, gun, stove and first-aid amongst other miscellany I witnessed that humbling, belittling goosepimple feeling of insignificance when I look above on a cloudless night full of stars. Slowly, as his reserves were being gnawed at by the flies buzzing by him and by the elements he had given himself to, we see him beginning to doubt himself and question his purpose in life. Those moments when these convictions rise high enough to sway his intellect into insanity and caprice but are quelled by his cockiness, belief in his destiny and his phenomenal persistence are sadly edited out but are sensed from his smiling visage and mirth. At one point, he breaks down completely and weeps uncontrollably at the loss of Seraphine who succumbs to the rigours and harsh impositions of their voyage. Was he then at his weakest and needed only the slightest of nudges to convince him of the futility of his mission? Did his 'enormous sense of responsibility to his companions' ring hollow to his ears? We never know, for as unnerving as his ambition is, his sense of right and wrong is even more brutally rugged and utilitarian. When Jon Muir finally made it to Burketown at the end of 128 days through 2500 kilometres of Australia's remote, less-travelled innards the whole length of which by his own admission was peopled by at most a hundred, he had lost a third of his body weight, he had travelled ignorant of two planes crashing into some tall buildings in America, had lost his gun while whacking a pig after having failed to kill it with a single bullet shot, and had suffered abrasions on his caving stomach from the churning of the leather-belt and the crusts of mud and rock that infiltrated onto his person. All this only to be accosted by Channel Nine and asked how it felt.The film show continued but could never retain the force and raw, gutting emotion of Alone Across Australia. Some of the subsequent films which not just paled but completely faded into nothingness would otherwise have been good productions in their own right. A documentary -- Ouray Ice -- on the Ouray Ice Climbing competition in Ouray, Colorado depicting the contrasting and contorting styles of ice and rock-climbing of two Europeans and the final piece -- At the Ends of the Earth -- a delectable cartoon short evocative of The Triplets of Belleville were the only savoury redeemers.
