Chuck Jaffee’s reviews of Rock the Boat, Towers of the Ennedi and Cold
Chuck Jaffee plays an essential role in the Wild & Scenic Film Festival. As a past Head Juror and as a key player in the film selection process, Chuck’s film experience ensures our film selections have the quality and diversity required to create a successful festival.
Rolling Down the River ["Rock the Boat"]
Sometimes what makes it an adventure is not the risk of drowning or getting hurt. Sometimes adventure means risking arrest or harassment.
In the case of one set of kayakers and canoeists (canoes, how tough could it be), they paddled 51 miles in three days down a catch 22. Some government officials said the Los Angeles River was navigable. Others said it was incompatible with navigation. Whatever that means, the Army Corps of Engineers wouldn’t grant permits.
Most often, a paddling adventure in the Wild & Scenic Film Festival shows that a river CAN be run. “Rock the Boat” shows that a river MAY be run. In the only confrontation with the cops, the adventurers sidled along on a technicality/fib/oversight. After their journey, the Los Angeles River was officially declared navigable.
What’s the significance? Compliments of the wording in the Clean Water Act, only navigable rivers might receive environmental protection. With channelized (spelled “concrete”) rivers in just about every major urban area in the United States, that’s a flood of significance.
Watch the seekers in “Rock the Boat” test governmental waters with politeness. Watch playful, earnest people discover an unlikely experience of urban nature for now and tomorrow. Watch the citizens communicate that Los Angeles could save more than 50 percent of its water bill by restoring a watershed currently orchestrated solely to push runoff and storm water to the ocean as fast as possible.
Filming paddlers typically makes the phrase “go with the flow” an adrenalin boiler through exotic locations. Mixed into the Wild & Scenic Film Festival, “Rock the Boat” entices us with an as yet uncharted, homegrown journey to the future.
Rock on Desert ["Towers of the Ennedi"]
Some experiences are not about complete sentences. When you watch the 13 minutes of insane magic in “Towers of the Ennedi,” it can’t be about knowing what these guys’ lives are. How can you know them just because someone added film art to the mix? It is a swirled combination of metaphor and fact. It is dedicated play. The connection to extreme adventure comes closer to making sense using snatches of words and phrases.
Bone. Beetle. Sun. Camels. The Ennedi Desert. 500 roadless miles. Remote, even for Chad in central Africa. Dust. Broken car parts. Sand. Pushing. When already? Tents. Stars. Spires of rock. Pictographs. Oil paintings. First Ascents. Synnott, age 40. Honnold and Pearson in their twenties. A balance found in crazy, risky trips. Dicey rock. Better than expected rock. Solo ascents. Pairings. Three tops. Quick. Slow. Another. Another. Hundreds of feet down. 360 degrees around. Arches. THE arch, the delicate arch. A lifetime of rock to climb.
They peppered a rockatecture, remote desert oasis with firsts. Sure, our lives are sleepy by comparison, but watching “Towers of the Ennedi” sparks the synapses of vicarious dreams.
It’s Rocking Cold ["Cold"]
In the film “Cold,” a guy says, “What the ef am I doing here?” If there are situations with no reason to mince words, certainly this was one of them.
Showcasing nutsoid adventure extremes is a legacy of the Wild & Scenic Film Festival. About ten percent of the films play to the adventure niche. The film “Cold” ascends to the extreme end of the extreme adventure realm. Firsts, such as first ascents, seem to appeal especially.
Apparently, sixteen expeditions by others failed to conquer an 8000 meter peak in Pakistan (over 26,000 feet). Mind you, the qualifying challenge includes doing it in winter. The three guys in “Cold” brought a camera to capture the lunacy of expedition #17. They didn’t bring oxygen, but they brought a camera.
Not only did they chronicle the title subject of the film, enduring daily temperatures of 20 below zero and 50 below zero. Not only did they document their torturous quest. They heightened the coverage with the near death experience that chased them on their return.
More than the physical feat, “Cold” accounts for the luck and the weather conditions that gel numbing commitment into fulfillment. Making what is essentially a home movie as far away from home as anyone can go, these three guys have added awarding winning film credits to their chilling accomplishments.
Visit Chuck Jaffee’s blog for reviews of other films featured in the 10th Wild & Scenic Film Festival, as well as official selections from the festival in years past. You can also read the reviews in The Union and the Nevada City Advocate newspapers.
