The Crash Reel

Shaun White and Kevin Pearce have been friendly rivals since childhood. They have known each other since 9 or 10. Shaun has always won everything. However in the years leading up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Kevin has started to win some. It's a struggle to put in more dangerous high flying tricks. Then 49 days to the Olympics, Kevin suffers a harrowing injury practicing a tough trick. He barely survives while Shaun goes on to win the gold. As he gets better, he wants to snowboard once again despite the fears from everybody.

This is an eye opening documentary. First there is a pretty interesting remembrance of the rivalry between Shaun and Kevin. There is his family life and a simple retelling of his life leading up to the injury. After the injury, it seems to be a straight forward traditional inspirational feel good movie. Then it becomes a suspense as Kevin keeps trying to relive his past despite everybody fighting him. The tension is really high as we fear for another brain injury. This is a very compelling tense revealing personal journey.

I saw the The Crash Reel several days ago after its debut on HBO. It has resonated with me ever since -- mostly because of the story and the humanity of its protagonist, the World Class snowboarder Kevin Pearce -- but also because of the exquisite soundtrack that director Lucy Walker utilized to fuse this very emotional subject to the viewer's experience.

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a silent and insidious condition. The difficulty of documentaries such as this is that they tend to portray the victims in as positive a light as possible, with the most optimistic of outcomes. The sad truth of many survivors is that their lives are extremely difficult as they work inordinately hard to maintain just a fraction of the life they used to live. The documentary only hints at these lingering deficits, and it is impossible to know the truth of where Mr. Pearce presently stands in his recovery. I would muster to guess that his life is much more restrictive and frustrating than the movie suggests. This is the primary reason for my less than perfect rating. I would have preferred a more honest assessment of Mr. Pearce's functionality post-injury instead of what I viewed as an unnecessary, though human, detour into the struggles of one of his brothers with Down Syndrome.

I'm a skier and have hitherto always found a certain type of snowboarder a little annoying. I'm not stating this to be confrontational or anything but simply to illustrate how successful The Crash Reel is. Not only is it very well made and emotionally strong but it has instilled in me a new found respect for snowboarding. It tells the story of Kevin Pearce, a snowboarder who was a favourite to make the American Winter Olympic team for Vancouver 2009. He was the main rival for Shaun White – the greatest boarder there has been – and he was slowly picking up trophies and his career was about to go into hyper-drive. It was at this point that he suffered an accident on a half-pipe that left him brain damaged. It's a story that has been told in different parts – firstly as a sports documentary about the rise of a new star, then about a man trying to recover from a brain injury and lastly about acceptance and wisdom gained through experience. In adopting this approach it covers a lot of ground and leaves you with a lot of different things to ponder over, such as the dangers of snowboarding and the importance of the family unit.

In some respects the scariest thing about The Crash Reel was how easily and innocuously the fateful accident happened. It wasn't a spectacular crash but one you could easily envisage happening to any boarder capable of tackling the big half-pipes. It makes you ponder the very real dangers involved in the sport and how quickly everything can change. The tragedy of Pearce is that he instantly became a young man unable to do the one thing he excelled at. But as the film later illustrates he was lucky, as we learn of different boarders and skiers who are actually killed. The film functions partly as a warning about the dangers of extreme sports both physically and psychologically. But it also celebrates the sport too with lots of incredible snowboarding footage. But it's the family scenes that often leave the biggest impression. The Pearce's are clearly a strong and loving family and their many scenes with Kevin, trying to reason with him about not getting back on a board again are heart-felt. It's in these moments that the other star of the documentary emerges, namely Kevin's brother David who suffers from Downs Syndrome. David was often the voice of reason and was an extremely fascinating character. It made me think that we simply never hear the voices of people who suffer David's condition. And judging by The Crash Reel it is a voice well worth hearing.

All-in-all, this is an excellent documentary that scores points in several areas. It made me go away and think about things and that's really what it's all about at the end of the day.

All the synopses of this movie stress the rivalry between Shaun White and Kevin Pearce but I felt this documentary had very little to do with White (and the actual "rivalry" seemed very one sided). The footage (quality and volume) is admirable, but I wish the narrative was a little more focused. Is it a documentary about Kevin's struggle? Or about the snowboarding community? Or about the danger of extreme sports? If it's trying to be all three, I really wish they pointed the lens at the real culprit: events like the X-Games that celebrate and instigate athletes to do bigger, faster and more dangerous tricks in pursuit of glory. I appreciated the patience of this documentary, compiling footage over 4 years to follow Kevin's personal arc from desperate to return to what he believes makes him whole, to an understanding that he is not (and never will be) the person he was before the accident. He's an endearing protagonist, so this was a very watchable film.

If you like snowboarding or not I think this is an amazing look into a life of and amazing person with an amazing family. Kevin is a superstar snowboarder when a tough break forces him into changing his entire life. This piece of work is so well done. One of my favorite documentaries of all time.