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There’s no shortage of shred flicks out there to watch to get yourself fired up to go snowboarding. But, how many are filmed entirely at a resort? Even more, how many get you so excited to ride, but the athletes in the film rarely leave the ground?
Enter IIXI. That’s Eleven By One, a film by Morgan Maassen, a collection of eleven vignettes, compelling in their own right, but wrapped up into one elegant black and white film.
The crew makes the most of their season throughout the film, from early season hikes, to mid-winter deep days we all dream about, perfect corduroy, to splitboarding remnants in the spring.
Throughout the film, the message is clear: friends, fun, finesse, and just fucking shredding.
A personal favorite is vignette IV, as the crew hikes some shallow freshly fallen snow on the lower aspects of a resort, earning the best of both worlds: pristine, freshly tilled piste blanketed with a few inches of fresh snow. There’s no commentary, so we can only assume that it was filmed early morning, right before the resort opened. It has that certain look to it, and if you’ve ever been there yourself, you can almost feel the cold stillness, and anticipation for the day. This crew, however, took matters into their own hands. Anticipation be damned.
Then, there’s V, which consists of one high energy, elegant, cinematic explosive powder turn, courtesy of Nicholas Wolken. Over the course of fifty-two seconds, Nicholas enters the frame into a pristine powder field, chucks a heavy frontside turn, which vaporizes into a curtain of snow. Amidst the chaos, snow glistens elegantly across the screen, and a silhouette, whom we can only imagine is grinning ear to ear, emerges through the explosion.
End scene.
The whole film takes on multiple personalities, but are all tied to one thing: the essence of the turn.
So, give it a watch (we recommend a really big screen). Get your screwdriver out, narrow that stance a bit, turn your back foot forward just a few degrees, and go explore your local mountain with some fresh inspiration.
