MILLER TIME
Is it possible to be off the grid and on it at the same time? After watching Warren Miller’s latest, one certainly hopes so. For many fans, the annual Warren Miller ski flick is as much a part of fall as trick-or-treating and the daily check of Mount Spokane, for traces of the first snow.
People from all walks of life come together at Miller’s films to spend a few hours with their tribe of fellow snow-junkie powder hounds.
They walk out totally pumped for the ski season, feeling like snow warriors, invincible in pursuit of first tracks and the perfect line.
Most skiers never break bottomless powder, bright blue skies above, a helicopter waiting to whisk them back up those soaring peaks. Miller’s excellent cinematography captures the sheer joy and fun the world’s top snow athletes experience while whisking down some of the world’s most beautiful slopes. It puts the viewer in those boots, flying through that perfect powder down that impossibly steep line.
Miller’s latest effort, “Off the Grid,” takes the average ski bunny through the snow ghosts of the Wasatch Mountains, and on to a resort in Kashmir where soldiers with machine guns guard the lifts.
It transports middle-aged desk jockeys to the remote slopes of Alaska’s backcountry to tackle tricky, rocky slopes in a ski chair; off a 245-foot snow-covered cliff into the deep powder beneath; and into the biggest snowball fight any of them have ever seen.
“The grid is a metaphor. It represents the boundaries and routines of everyday life,” Producer/Director Max Bervy said. “Inversely, ‘Off the Grid’ is a place where nothing is common and everything is possible. It’s the place where we redefine boundaries, take risks and search out unique and undiscovered areas to escape the compromise of everyday life.”
Most anyone who has attended such an event has felt the urge to give into Miller’s strong enticement to quit his or her job and take up a career in ski bummery. Somehow he makes it seem not only a reasonable proposition, but the only sane thing to do.
“Off the Grid” stays true to form in that and all other respects.
Miller’s formula of great skiers in perfect conditions, hip sound tracks with awe inspiring scenery and plenty of wry humor throughout, has been pleasing snow riders and giving them an escape from the doldrums of late autumn for more than 50 years.
A cult following has built up over the years, turning attending a movie into an experience unto itself. The adrenaline flows so strong the audience can’t restrain their hoots and hollers at every stunning feat.
“You don’t go just for the movie,” 18-year-old local free-skier, Eric Davidson said. “You go for the environment and the other people who will be there. They get you all pumped up. You go for the excitement.”
Audience members know real life isn’t like what they’re seeing on the screen. They’ve spent plenty of days on rutted, icy slopes, skiing through rain and sleet, waiting in line for the lift. But they can’t help fantasizing about soaring through the air unafraid of the ground beneath them, or the thrill of outrunning an avalanche, or disappearing into the White Room, powder so deep it engulfs you.
Today it seems that everyone has their own ski movie company, but no one has been doing it for as long, or as well, as Warren Miller. None capture the awe and adventure the way he does, or makes washing dishes for a free lift ticket seem like the sensible thing to do.