The Art of Flight

Get into a helicopter, get dropped off at the top of the mountain, skate down.

This movie once again makes it seem so easy, yet so impressive at the same time. With a good mixture between big mountain downhill and some of the most impressive jumps you will ever see, "The Art of Flight" is not an educational snowboarding movie. It's a piece that shows you several athletes constantly looking to push the limits.

Whether it is skating down while avalanches are being kicked off left and right, whether they are closely avoiding crashing into rocks on a slope that's not even as wide as a car or whether they land jumps that you thought impossible, this movie will leave you in awe most of the time. Adding to that is the spectacular cinematography in beautiful places like Chile, Patagonia and Alaska. This is hands down the best looking snowboarding piece ever made.

That said, "The Art of Flight" could use a little more direction at points and some of the scenes seemed rather pointless. Other movies build up to a grand finale, this one merely shows you a bunch of guys on the hunt for snow - which does not make it any less of a great movie, but leaves you with a feeling that more could have been achieved. There is very little being said about the personal lives of the athletes as well.

If you're simply looking for big mountain and big air, this is not to be missed. If spectacular images of mountain scenery are your thing, this movie will make you happy. If you're looking for an entertaining movie about snowboarding, you should still go and see this. You might be disappointed though if you're expecting a big story behind it all.

"The Art of Flight" is "The Odyssey" of snowboard movies. It's epic camera work makes even Warren Miller look like an amateur. Red Bull helps pull out all the stops, to produce the most wild documentation of the world of snowboarding out there.

Travis Rice, John Jackson, and Mark "Lando" Landvik take the world of snowboarding to a new level in the opening scene alone, which sets the tone, and gives you a small taste of what's in store for the rest of the film.

The crew even gives you a small inside look into their lives during the planning phases and cloudy down days that prevent filming.

There's not not too much more that can be said about the film beyond "Epic" aside from watch the film. It's the only way to fully understand.

Great sound track. Ground breaking film.

The Art of Flight.

Video & Audio Quality

A bit geeky but here goes. Blu-Ray video was averaging around 20 Mbps (peaking 35 Mbps) and audio was averaging around 5.5 Mbps (peaking 7.5 Mbps). To give some comparison a typical Hollywood DVD has video and audio totalling around 4.5 Mbps – yes you read that right, just the audio alone on this Blu-Ray has a higher bit rate than the video and audio of a DVD combined. I invested pretty heavily in good home setup and this Blu-Ray took advantage, the 1080p AVC video and Dolby TrueHD audio are stunning. The iTunes version is 2.7 GB (highly compressed) the Blu-Ray works out at 16 GB approx. As a result you are getting 6X more detail here. 10/10

Film Content

With the money pumped into this production it was clear it wouldn't be an amateur hour affair. Things kick off in Alaska for some pretty mental runs before moving south to the Andes in Chile with some pretty intimidating rocky terrain, moving further south to Patagonia before moving up north again for a second winter in BC.

There is a lot of filler between the action videos. This filler is typically narration mixed with some arty, almost pretentious, video work. Those that don't appreciate this might want less narrative and more action, I found the balance good. On the subject of video, if there are two signature video shots from this film it would be wide-angle slow-motion pointing into the sun – great action, and time lapse of the moving night sky – great filler. 8/10

Music

The main trailer has an amazing tune which is collaboration between M83 and Brain Farm Cinema, sadly it's not used in the film! There is some other electronic, including some tracks off M83's forthcoming album. Some post-rock from Sigur Ros and even a little light rock. Perhaps my expectations were too high after the trailer but it didn't fit as well as I'd hoped. Certainly not bad though. 7/10

Rating

I am clearly no film critic, but in terms of production values this is the best snowboarding film I have seen. The action is great too, it's 1hr 20 of great snowboarding and impressive cinematography. It's not everything I had hoped for, but so close. My favourite snowboarding film to date. 8/10.

Even if you're not into snowboarding The Art Of Flight is worth watching. Just for the stunning cinematography alone it's worth the detour. The high quality of imaging, the beautiful sceneries, the breathtaking stunts, they all add up to make this documentary an enjoyable television moment. The slow motion shots are just sublime. I never snowboarded before and probably never will but it for sure makes you to want to. Sponsored by Red Bull, and that will be needed, as I can imagine it's not in everybody's budget to visit all those beautiful and remote places. Special credits to the helicopter pilots as well as they prove how well they control their machines. Some of the narrating voices could have been better, but the soundtrack made up for that. The Art Of Flight, for fans of snowboarding, extreme sports, or just for the breathtaking mountain views.

The cinematography of this film is amazing. Fantastic scenes, the distant views are brilliant, fantastic slow-motion shots. It starts with a journey of small cliffs gradually taking you to some of the most dangerous conditions that these guys snow board in.

It shows what these guys really live for and why they do it. There is not much of a story this is a 'point and view' documentary about the lives of a few pro snow boarders. Very little is said in this documentary and it fits perfectly well.

It certainly gives an insight to viewers about the sort of risks they take for the adrenalin rushes these guys need to feel alive.

This is an amazing view in high definition.