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HTF Sony/Columbia Reviewer
Location: Fishkill, N.Y.
Join Date: Dec 2001
Local Time: 08:42 AM
Local Date: 10-13-2008
Posts: 559
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HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Steep
Steep
Studio: Sony
Year: 2007
Rated: PG
Program Length: 89 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 1080p/AVC MPEG-4
Languages: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French
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The Program
I tried to become a normal person and have a normal job, but that didn’t work out. – Doug Coombs, extreme skier
I have never been a skier, but I have some experience with mountains. In the late eighties and early nineties I climbed to the peaks of a half dozen 14,000 foot mountains in Colorado. The thrill of standing in places where relatively few people have stood and seeing views which relatively few people have seen is difficult to describe, but the potential danger is impossible to deny. I had to race down from the peak of Mount Princeton when a rapidly-forming thunderstorm blew in. I turned back several hundred feet short of the top of La Plata Peak when a mid-July sleet storm made the footing treacherous. Combine skis with some of the highest and most rugged mountains in the world and you have extreme skiing, which is the subject of the fascinating and spectacular documentary Steep.
What is extreme skiing? It traces its beginnings in the United States to 1971, when a man named Bill Briggs skied the Grand Teton in Wyoming. Adventurous skiers who had grown weary of the restrictive rules and regulations at ski resorts took notice, and a new sport was born. These skiers wanted skiing which was higher, steeper, and longer than that which was afforded by conventional ski trails. Issues of legal liability made it increasingly difficult for extreme skiers to engage in the sport in the continental United States, so many of them moved to Chamonix, France, where they could ski with virtually no restrictions. Then they discovered Alaska.
Valdez, Alaska is best known to most people because of the horrendous oil spill in 1989, but in the nineties it became the center of extreme skiing in North America. Skier Doug Coombs not only discovered fabulous mountains to ski, he also found that Alaska has the best snow for skiing in the world. The mountains are buried in wet snow every winter, but the Arctic air quickly dries out the snow pack, leaving behind the finest white powder. Coombs and his wife began a service which took skiers to mountain peaks via helicopter. Customers came from all around the globe to ski mountains which had never been skied before.
Steep follows several of the world’s most prominent extreme skiers as they attack snow-covered mountains in North American and Europe. In addition to Doug Coombs, we see footage of Ingrid Backstrom, Glen Plake, Andrew McLean, Seth Morrison and others in action. What these people do is absolutely breathtaking. They fly down the sides of rugged mountains at speeds of up to 50 MPH, at times making amazing jumps and occasionally taking spectacular spills.
What drives people to engage in such risky behavior? Make no mistake about it, extreme skiing is very dangerous. Indeed, a number of prominent extreme skiers have died on the slopes, and in fact one of the skiers who is featured in Steep died in a fall before the film was completed. Yet their friends ski on, apparently driven by the challenges and rewarded by the thrills which they experience.
If Steep has a weakness as a documentary, it is that it never really questions whether the risk is worth it. One of the most important extreme skiers died at the age of 48, leaving behind a wife and three-year-old son. His wife appears to be accepting of it, saying that her husband died while doing something that he loved, but will his son be so understanding? At what point does pushing the envelope become selfishness, where a man’s need for excitement becomes more important than the welfare of his family? One wonders, but the filmmakers do not ask those questions.
Ultimately, though, Steep is more about thrills and excitement than about illumination, and in that regard it really delivers.
The Video
The 1080p Blu-ray widescreen transfer is mostly excellent. However, as with most documentaries, the video quality varies depending upon the source material. Archival footage is necessarily less sharp than the material shot for this film. The skiing scenes were shot on film and exhibit a moderate amount of grain. Interiors and interviews were shot on high-definition tape.
Overall, the AVC MPEG-4 codec provides excellent sharpness and smoothness. The blue skies and powder-white snow are beautifully rendered. Mountain peaks and valleys have never looked more gorgeous or more awe-inspiring. The faces of the interviewees are so detailed that they appear to be sitting across a table from the viewer. The transfer is free of digital artifacts and it is unlikely that the film looked better than this during its theatrical run. Sony has done an excellent job with this Blu-ray release.
The Audio
The Dolby Digital TrueHD 5.1 audio is excellent. The narration by Peter Krause (Six Feet Under) is always clear and intelligible. Most of the skiing footage is shot at a distance and is enhanced by Anton Sanko’s evocative musical score, which has some nice dimensionality to it. There is not much for the subwoofer to do, although there is one scene where three skiers are nearly swept away by an avalanche, and it almost made me jump out of my seat.
The Supplements
If you are like me, you will be repeatedly asking yourself “How did they shoot that scene?” as you are watching the film. Fortunately, one of the special features is a 17-minute featurette entitled “Shooting Steep” which answers most of those questions. The featurette is a combination of live action and still photos.
The disc also features a commentary with write/director/executive producer Mark Obenhaus and extreme skiers Ingrid Backstrom and Andrew McLean. As you may have deduced, extreme skiing is a male-dominated sport, with Ingrid Backstrom being one of the few females to have made a mark in the field.
Other supplements include a question and answer session with Obenhaus, Backstrom and McClean and a separate interview with skier Doug Coombs. Portions of the interview with Coombs appear in the feature.
The Packaging
The single disc comes in a standard Blu-ray keepcase.
The Final Analysis
Steep is a visually stunning documentary. Even those who have no interest in skiing may want to rent this, if only to have the opportunity to be astonished at the sight of skiers hurtling down the sides of some of steepest mountains in the world. It some respects it reminds me of Step Into Liquid, the excellent 2003 documentary about surfing.
Equipment used for this review:
Panasonic DMP-BD10A DVD Player
Sharp LC-42D62U LCD display
Yamaha HTR-5890 THX Surround Receiver
BIC Acoustech speakers
Interconnects: Monster Cable
Release Date: March 25, 2008 (the standard DVD is being released on March 18)
Rich Gallagher
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