Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

On thin ice

2014; Elsevier BV; Volume: 13; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s1474-4422(14)70045-6

1474-4465

Steven Goodrick,

Winter Sports Injuries and Performance

Thanks to the exponential growth in popularity of personal recording devices over the past few decades, from super-8 cameras in the 1960s, to home video cameras in the 1980s, right through to modern day smart phones, most people will have, to some degree, a filmed record of not only the high points, but also, and more usually, the more mundane events in their life. One arena that has certainly been revolutionised by the profligacy of such verité footage is the craft of the documentary maker. And, when she turned her lens towards accomplished snowboarder and one-time Olympic hopeful Kevin Pearce, two-time Oscar-nominated (for Waste Land and The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom) film maker Lucy Walker certainly hit pay dirt in terms of a thrills and spills back story. In the end result—The Crash Reel—she interlaces nearly 20 years' worth of personal recordings and news clips with newly shot material. The film begins on New Year's Eve 2009, and with 49 days to go the competition for a place in the US snowboarding team for the Vancouver Winter Olympics is reaching fever pitch, particularly so between Kevin and his main rival, and world number one, Shaun White. Kevin and his entourage have decamped to the Utah Park City half-pipe—for the uninitiated, this is a parabolic ditch dug out of the ice that the competitors traverse to build the momentum required to achieve aerodynamic stunts. Kevin, needing to pull something spectacular out of the bag to get the edge over Shaun, is going to add the jaw dropping double cork 1080 maneuver to his repertoire. A misjudgment when landing on the side of the half-pipe during a practice session causes his board to pivot, smashing Kevin face first into the ice sheet. The accident and the ensuing chaos are excruciatingly captured in real time as the unconscious and intubated Kevin is airlifted to the University of Utah Medical Center in Salt Lake City. While increased recognition of the dangers of head injury and repeated concussions in sports such as boxing and American football is now stimulating the drive to make protective headgear mandatory, this is already firmly integrated into the culture of sports such as skiing and snowboarding. However, thanks to the pressure to attempt ever more dangerous stunts on courses that are made more and more difficult, and spurred on by the combination of vainglory, all-encompassing competitiveness, and by the demands of sponsors and promoters, competitors are placed at increasing risk of injuries that current helmets have no hope of protecting against. Indeed, everyone Walker interviews has sustained some kind of serious injury. Although, Kevin survives his accident, albeit with severe and permanent neurological deficits, not all the competitors featured in The Crash Reel are as fortunate. The renowned freestyle skier C R Johnson, who was lauded as a hero for recovering from a traumatic brain injury and returning to competition, was keen to visit Kevin during his convalescence, but never made this trip as he sustained a further head injury while competing and died. Later in the film, the Olympic skier Sarah Burke sustains a serious head injury at the same course where Kevin was injured, and dies 29 days later. But the Crash Reel is much more than just a salutary tale of the dangers of extreme sports. On one level, it is also a coming of age story. Kevin, a naturally fearless risk taker who enjoyed considerable success from an early age and also reaped the rewards, both financial and adulatory, finds it hard to contemplate life away from snowboarding. He is practically planning his triumphant return from his hospital bed. Even after seeing an MRI of the damage to his brain his response is to ask the neurologist for some idea of how hard he can actually hit his head without causing more damage. Even the measured but persistent entreaties of his increasingly distraught family pale into the background compared with the lure of the competition. It is inevitable that Kevin is sooner or later going to get back on his board, whatever the consequences, and it is only through this action will he finally come to terms with the consequences of his accident. If, like me, the lure of the piste has always been a bit of a mystery, you may think that The Crash Reel will have little to appeal to you. However, such is the skill of Walker that she manages to collate footage that draws out the charisma and fragility in Kevin. By turns moving, disturbing, and thrilling, and peppered with just enough slapstick (non-serious) accident footage to titillate the viewer, The Crash Reel is an inexplicably compelling and highly entertaining film. The Crash ReelLucy Walker (2013). 108 min. The Crash Reel Lucy Walker (2013). 108 min.