Steep
Don't get too excited by the monosyllabic title, kids.
Unlike most extreme-skiing documentaries where high-speed tricks, spectacular wipeouts, and loud music come flying at you right out of the gate, "Steep" sets itself apart as a softer, deeper meditation on what makes people think they can ride a pair of pointy, slender boards down the world's fiercest mountains.
The film is a serious celebration of pioneer spirit that takes some thought and patience to appreciate. Which means it's likely to be a huge disappointment to viewers who come mostly looking for nonstop action and in-your-face antics.
"Steep" writer-director Mark Obenhaus (formerly best known as a producer of TV shows for Peter Jennings) has loaded his movie with historical background, expert interviews, authoritative narration by "Six Feet Under" alum Peter Krause, and deliberately unhurried appreciations of the high-altitude terrain. He has elected to spend at least as much time showing how the trailblazing athletes ascend various peaks as he does showing how they get themselves down in one piece. If this were a small-screen movie (as maybe it should be), you would watch it on the Discovery Channel or PBS, not ESPN2.
Working his way through a chronology of backcountry skiing that includes European legends and real American heroes, Obenhaus uses vintage and contemporary footage to tell the story - from Bill Briggs's groundbreaking run down Wyoming's Grand Teton in 1971 to the extraordinary adventures of Massachusetts native Doug Coombs, who won two world championships and helped found the Alaskan heliskiing industry before he died on a mountain in France in 2006.
There's a gear shift when it comes time to tell the irreverent tale of Glen Plake, the mohawked star of 1988's influential "The Blizzard of Aahhh's" documentary. And a little later "Steep" turns up the volume about as much as it's comfortable doing when it gets around to big-air master Seth Morrison, base-jumper/skier Shane McConkey, and ultra-hot freeskier Ingrid Backstrom. But even at its most energetic, the documentary never comes close to a head-banging barrage of sight and sound.
It would rather let cinematographer Erich Roland (shooting in high-definition video) be as focused on the landscape as he is on the schussing. And it would rather fill your ears with the eloquent words of world-class skier Stefano De Benedetti, who explains in an interview: "You don't want to die. But to live so close to the possibility of dying, you understand what is really important and what not. And this makes you a better person. In the perfect moment, I was - or felt to be - a little Superman."
One man's adrenaline rush is another's brush with immortality. That's "Steep."
Janice Page can be reached at jpage@globe.com. For more on movies, go to boston.com/ae/movies/blog.
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