Streif: One Hell of a Ride (2014) Online

The premise of this film is actually quite ambitious and interesting. The world's most dangerous ski track in the world, forces that even race car drivers only rarely encounter - but skiers have no aids to work against them but plain muscles, fame and fortune if you win this vicious run on this infamous killer slope...

The pictures actually do reflect what i just mentioned, but it keeps doing it over and over again. It seems like this film's mission is to constantly remind you of the danger and significance simultaneously. It appears like no other downhill race on the world cup calender counts - only this one. In fact it's the holiest of holy grails but it can kill you. Do you start to see a pattern here? Actually there isn't much to say about the contents of this documentary. We have this dangerous track, like a wild bull, and the cowboys who can tame it, heroes, as we would call it. The framework is a very straight forward editing with heavy use of dramatic music and sound effects to underline the fury of this "ride" - yet, you never get to see the full ride. Although this movie spends near two hours glorifying this race you never really get a chance to hear very basic facts.

Over and over we hear preparing athletes pay their tribute and respect to this course and how it changed their lives but just after you think a chapter will be further explored it jumps around very loosely and mixes rather incoherent scenes using quick cuts.

Although there would be so much substance this film actually lacks a real story. It is more a portrayal of fates than actually a developing story, a TV two parter in ESPN production standards. And that makes me a little be bit sad because all the material was basically there, but the ones who put it together really should revisit film school. Although it meets all the production standards of modern documentary film making it is just not thoroughly pleasant to take a look at the clock and being told you still got an hour to go.

I call it the Transformers effect: Once you cross the invisible line of perceivable magnitude you end up achieving exactly the opposite with the viewer. In other words: far too much may achieve far less than even the sum of its elements - and yes, less can be really be more. The problem is that this film relies too much on tons of effects instead of just giving an insight on what this is actually about.

"Streif: One Hell of a Ride" is an Austrian film in the German language with occasional parts in English. it was made in 2014, but came out a bit later, so it has its 2nd anniversary this year. The duo of writer and director are Gerald Salmina and Tom Dauer and it is probably the most known work from both of them, possibly also their longest as it comes close to the 2-hour mark. The title already gives away the subject. This movie is about one of the most difficult competitive skiing races that takes place once a year in the Austrian town of Kitzbühel. It includes interviews with many (former) professional athletes and they give is their take on the Streif and what it meant to them in particular. Unfortunately, as always with these subjects, it is all a bit over the top and exaggerated in terms of how they talk about this. And with "these subjects", I am referring to films that sometimes also focus on adrenaline sports or maybe also mountain climbing for example. But this one is about going downhill and doing so as fast as possible. Once again, they show several skiers perform in car racing and this parallel in terms of need for speed is something I have seen or read about several times. The prime example is of course Luc Alphand. But back to this one here: I may be a bit biased as I have never been a fan of ski racing much, but this documentary is also not one that would turn me into a fan or anybody else if I'm honest. People who love watching ski racing and who know all the people on here (like Rahlves) will certainly enjoy it more, but I did not find it an informative movie and that's pretty bad for such a long film. This film is all about making the Streif an even bigger event than it already is and I don't think that's a good enough foundation for a film. Also the one thing I was missing completely here was the look at the past, show the people from back in the day who turned the Hahnenkammrennen into what it is today. I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.