Rating: The Search For Freedom is more a search for a shared experience. It tells the story of extreme sports in a broad manner, plucking at the history of what it seems to suggest all started out as loner and anti-social sports and then revealing - through talking heads with achingly cool icons - what it all means in personal terms. For fans of the industry, it's something of an essential watch, even if it is a little slight on substance. The over-riding feeling is that the film is something of a supermodel film. It's not vapid - by any means - but it's almost entirely invested in how good it looks. That much shouldn't be all that surprising, given that it's directed by IMax veteran Jon Long, who has built a career capturing extreme moments on film and celebrating them in as stunning a definition as humanly possible. The film is a stunning technical achievement, which rather fittingly pauses midway through to talk about the symbiotic relationship between the sports and film-making: how the latter helped build the former and how most who thrive as sportsmen know what it takes to show off their skills on film. Offering those little notes of celebration to the unheralded cameramen is a particularly nice touch. At times, Long gets lost in his visuals: extending sequences you know he got a kick out of shooting, or adding a little too much slow-motion to moments that by definition deserve to be shown as truthfully (and thus at break-neck, terrifying speeds) as possible. It's no accident that the most startling moments combine Long's eye for a shot and real jeopardy for the subjects. And every now and then beneath the aesthetic mythologising, there are profoundly insightful glimpses of what extreme sports mean to their participants and their icons. There's a very real distinction (which is never actually overtly discussed) between what "regular" sportsman do and how they define themselves, and the way language of extreme sportsmen. A footballer, or a golfer talks about how they are an instrument of their profession: that their success is linked entirely to their ability, obviously. The cream of the crop of surfing, skiing, climbing and skating here talk only about experiences and feelings. They excel because of their unwillingness to accept that they're the best, or that there isn't something bigger or more dramatic to conquer. That isn't rocket science, inevitably, but to say such a gallery of lauded icons talking the same language and explaining frankly why they seek thrills (including an actual genetic response from an ER doctor who free falls at weekends) is still a heady experience. Particularly for fans. But even with those moments of poetic clarity, the film is largely just an exercise in the pornography of extreme sports. It's satisfying and impressive, of course, but it's not exactly bursting with those revelations or extra levels to engage on. But even tempering expectations to fit that, it's worthwhile. The film is released on Blu-ray and DVD on August 10th, and is available on digital download now.
