The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting cooler.
Summer has barely rounded the corner from the hot sweaty nights and beach days where I fight a losing battle to keep the house clean and I have to brush the sand off my sheets each night before bed.
But the first leaves have begun to fall from the birch tree in my backyard, dry and crunchy, and I can feel the cool breath of fall on the air when the wind picks up.
The short and beautiful summer has left my arms a tone of copper they have never before achieved, thanks to long hot July days spent in halter tops painting window frames and yard work.
While it should seem winter is a far off possibility, and will arrive in its own time on frosty fingertips and the intricate web of crystal snowflakes falling from the sky, in one small way it has already arrived.
For with the teaser trailers of the unbelievably beautiful ski films about to emerge for consumption by snow lovers everywhere, dreams will begin to shift from the golden glow of summer sunsets and beach fires to ones of powder so soft and light it sprays over your head and afternoons spent floating across perfect pillows, previously uncut by metal edges and untrammelled by animal footprints.
I was recently watching the trailer for a film called Valhalla by Sweetgrass Productions, which led me to watch more of their Vimeo videos and I was stunned. A sort of ‘making of’ trailer, entitled On the Road Episode XII – Two Years, Five Winters, starts out with a slow monotone voiceover in direct reflection of the post-modern feel of Fight Club and the running dialogue musings of Kerouac, taking you inside the consciousness of the filmmakers. This is set to a background of electronic beats while stunningly striking images blink across the screen interspersed with behind-the scenes footage in a rapid-fire sequence of sensory overload.
The result is a brilliantly poetic teaser which not only makes the viewer eager to see the resulting film, but desperate to head out on adventures of their own.
“In this life of the dirtbag rock star, emotion, roads, beds, home, beds, all blend into one unending stream of ephemeral being. Lives lived in the moment, wherever they happen to find themselves.”
The entire dialogue sounds like some sort of skier’s esoteric dream sequence.
Well done Sweetgrass, well done.
To experience the genius for yourself, go to: vimeo.com/49366887 then sit back and watch summer drift away with expectant joy of the winter adventures to come.
Who’s up for a fall ski and snowboard film screening party? The time is coming… and so is the snow.
