Greatest Ski Movie Ever!
Dedicated to Shane McConkey 1969-2009
Column by Heather Burke

I have loved ski movies from adolescence, when my parents would get all excited about each year’s new Warren Miller movie. We’d all go to the local ski club and watch the clickety, pixelly projector reel, and be transported to fabulous far away ski places.

I can still conjure up in my mind Miller’s iconic deep voice as he narrated clips of deep powder skiing around the globe, peppered with plenty of good wipe outs as humor. Film projectors have gone the way of 210-centimeter skis and rear entry ski boots, and the ski film industry has broadened to more hi-def, high adrenaline ski movie companies than I can count.

Nowadays, any skier with a digital video camera can post a terrain park video on youtube and proclaim himself a ski film producer. Sorting through the good, the bad and the ugly of ski and snowboard films is like trudging through waist deep powder without skis or snowshoes. With names like Meathead, Teton Gravity Research and Poor Boys, you never know what you’re going to get in a CD jewel case on a ski shop shelf.

So when my daughter said we had to watch “The Greatest Ski Movie Ever!” I rolled my eyes. But I indulged based on curiosity and the laundry list of ski talents on the disc jacket of Matchstick Production’s latest movie “Claim.” How bad could it be with legendary ski champs like Shane McConkey, female freeskier Ingrid Backstrum and Bethel star Simon Dumont?

The filming locations read like my Bucket List of resorts you must ski before your demise: Whistler and The Monashee’s in British Columbia, Chamonix, St Moritz, Courmayeur, Squaw Valley, Aspen – oh and finally Sunday River.

With a name like “Claim” and a tag line, Greatest Ski Movie Ever, I continued to be skeptical that this new school ski flick couldn’t possibly be all it claimed to be.

Then came a feature length show of spectacular footage, one phenomenal powder descent after another, gorgeous remote ski scenes from British Columbia and the Alps. I was glued. I’m no Gene Shalit movie critic, but moments into this ski movie – I was enthralled, even during the twisted terrain park scenes.

Not unlike Maine’s own ski film maker Greg Stump, “Claim” features a fantastic sound track cued up perfectly to the stunning skiing segments. Much to my delight, there was 80’s music with songs like Juke Box Hero by Foreigner and Final Countdown by Europe. Remember them? This gave me solace that like music, skiing is cyclical.

What’s different about this movie to me, an admitted old schooler, is the huge tricks these talented athletes pop amidst an otherwise awesome powder run. One minute freeskier Mark Abma is flying down an untouched mountain flank, then he’s jumping off powder caked trees and flipping off snowy cliffs. The stunts are absolutely mind boggling. Mind you, the skis for these alpine athletes are fatter than most of the 20-somethings wearing them, so they float through the deep snow, and they are designed to absorb the big landings.

Like Warren Miller’s movies, there is an entire catalogue of crashes in “Claim.” I appreciate that these ski stars, and the Matchstick producers, took the time to show the consequences of pushing the sport of skiing too high in the air, and daring off huge harrowing cliffs. Falling is part of the sport, and the higher you go the harder the fall.

Extreme skier and elder statesmen of the movie (at 39) Shane McConkey said, “I have been hurt so many times, I started to expect it.” There is a whole series of bloody lips, rag doll falls and “ooh, that’s gotta hurt” clips. I personally thank Matchstick for the “sometimes it’s magic, sometimes it’s tragic” message, this sobering reality is an important reminder in the otherwise fearless footage. McConkey died tragically in a BASE jumping accident, while filming in Italy, March 26, 2009.

Warren Miller may have been all about taking you to places you might not ever get to ski. Greg Stump choreographed music and a plot in his ski flicks. In “Claim,” Matchstick brings both, the plot premise here is that it’s okay to claim your success on skis.

Is it the greatest ski movie ever? I am not willing to stake that claim. But “Claim” is the first ski movie we have watched as a family that everyone agreed was “great.” The awesome alpine scenery, the sick skiing in billowing powder, and the clips of Simon Dumont making his world record 35-foot jump at Sunday River last April are worth watching. We found our sparkly gold and black copy at the new retail store in Bethel called Kai, owned by Simon Dumont’s sister Felicia Dumont. 

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