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Right from the opening credits, “Attack of La Niña” isn’t like any ski movie you’ve seen before. The latest work of art from Matchstick Productions, “La Niña” is about the 2010-11 ski season and the record-setting snowfall enjoyed by skiers in the Rockies, Southern Canada, and Pacific Northwest.
Instead of being an overly dramatic film in which skiers live in the backcountry for weeks, or a silly film with skiers playing around in a terrain park for hours, La Niña strikes a perfect balance between the two styles of ski film.
Every bit of skiing you see in “La Niña” will leave you wanting more, with many of the world’s best skiers in locations that most of us can only dream of. Some of the movie is spent at regular resorts, but the shining moments are the ones where you see the team skiing a peak that has never felt a pair of skis before.
The balance of ski styles works well, breaking up scenes that could quickly begin to feel similar, with the movie switching between park tricks and back-country every 10 minutes or so, a great choice for a film made during one of the biggest winters in recent memory.
It would have been easy enough for this to be an entirely back-country film, but the addition of park rats like X Games winner Bobby Brown keeps the film fresh and exciting through the very end.
Top-notch cinematography is not something you expect from a ski movie, which makes the epic backdrops in “La Niña” that much more impressive. The camera angles range from the tip of skis to sweeping panoramas of the mountains.
The soundtrack from the film is easily one of the best fitting and well chosen in a ski movie to date.
Every song fits perfectly with the style of skier it’s covering, and masterful editing has each skier stomping landings in time with the beat. One of the best combinations between music and visuals is a scene that features the song “Virgin” by Manchester Orchestra, also used in the trailer.
As the song builds, so does the visual tension, with the skiing evolving from cool, to dangerous, to outright insane.
“Attack of La Niña” is a prime example of ski movies at their very best, managing to be hilarious, cinematic and intense at the same time. An inspiration for anyone to suit up this Winter.
You can attend the world tour of ‘Attack of La Niña’ on Oct. 1 in Aspen, Colo., or at various places throughout Colorado during October and November. Visit http://www.skimovie.com/ for complete list of showtimes.
