Spectacular ski film

Press, 1 June 1976, Page 6

Spectacular ski film

“Mountain High,” making its premiere at the Town Hall last evening, had enough originality to more than compensate for it being yet another ski film to appropriate the theme music from ”2001."

Stanley Kubrick’s “Dawn of Man” sequence showed one sort of discovery — the potentiality of weapons; Dick Barrymore's imaginative filming revealed another — the enormous variety of things a man can do On skis and snow.

Some might think a man who produces, photographs.) and narrates his own film as well as getting in half the action has to be on an ego trip but it was more than that for Barrvmore.

His wittv cracks and ability to laugh at his own efforts to emulate the experts while Standing back and v>oking with awe at the feats of others in other sequence made for some extremely entertaining viewing Through Barrvmore we learnt that an essential quality for a hot-dogger was “madness”; that it was possible to do 630 degree turns;;

and that the best method for slowing on a bobsled course was “the Australian anklebreak” — hanging your feet over the side. FINE PHOTOGRAPHY His photography was at times brilliant and scenes varied from aerial aerobatics —back somersaults, front somersaults, and somersaults with full twist — in slow motion to the fast world of hot- ) dogging on moguls. j Barrymore was brave enough to try hang gliding on skis though he found it harder to contemplate doing it I once at the top of the slone i than when he had been talking about it in the bar the previous week. After failing to get off the ground on his first try he achieved the usual begmners-to-semi-expert success in a matter of minutes and had a long flight. Once hooked he built his own craft to save money and, naturally the glider disintegrated as soon as it took off.

He also climbed the Matterhorn with two guides and his wife but once having told us that the mountain had claimed 300 lives Barrymore

came back to earth, saying that there were fixed ropes to help tourists up the difficult parts and showing shots of the “traffic jam” of climbers en route to the summit. Levity might have been a constant theme in the film but there was plenty of serious ski-ing, and one highlight was the 187 perfect figure eights in a straight line, Mike Doyle, a former world surfing champion on a mono-ski, and Kiwi Gallagher achieved successively on a long, long slope in the Cariboos, part of the Canadian Rockies.

One of Barrymore’s final ■lefforts was as No. 2 man ■ in a four-man bob-sled which : travelled at 87 miles an hour down the famous Cresta run • with his camera and tape rei corder to add to his discom- ■ fort.

The sensation of speed down the course was incredible, but only a little less spectacular were the shots of the single sleds.

“Mountain High” will, be shown at the Town Hall again this evening before moving on to brief showings in Ashburton and other parts of the South Island. —Tim Dunbar.