Deathbowl to Downtown
Deathbowl to Downtown
Melbourne International Film Festival
Screening Friday August 7th
Pop-Culture documentaries are always a risky proposition at a film festival. The last thing you want is 80-minutes of ‘talking-heads’, droning on about how good they were or what it was like at that time – or, even worse, an exercise in name-dropping.
So when I heard about Deathbowl to Downtown I was initially skeptical. The essence of any good doco is to keep the story moving; make it succinct, and; importantly, dont bite of more than you can chew. The ‘blurb’ on Downtown was the evolution of New York skateboarding – not exactly succeeding in the biting off more than you can chew aspect. For the record your honor, I dont skate – in fact the closest thing I’ve gotten to riding a board was watching Gleaming The Cube (a Christian Slater classic – although it hasn’t aged that well – but I digress).
I have always had an interest in the history of various pop-cultures and tend to be drawn to them without much resistance. My interest in Downtown, however, lies in New York herself. The grand old lady of the east coast is a massive contradiction to the sun, surf and beaches of skateboarding’s west coast origin. Essentially, I wanted to see how this tale would be told.
Co-Directors Coan Nicholls and Rick Charnoski have managed to locate an array of interesting local skating identities and enough footage (some from private skate videos and handy-cams) to keep a casual observer interested for the 86 minute journey. The real strength of Downtown is its peripheral links to the surrounding culture, politics, fashions, fads – and even technology – that have all contributed to the sport’s success.
The DIY ethos of the filmmakers resonates throughout the story, much as it did to those who were around in the sports fledgling days. The interview grabs are short and sweet. The majority of the footage is breathtaking (see Mark Gonzales skating through NYC traffic) and the soundtrack adds a sense of realism to the visuals. While perhaps not to the same degree as the iconic Style Wars, Downtown still provides an accurate portrayal of the socio-economic times of New York from the 70s to present day. The only real drawback is Chloe Sevigny’s narration. Her monotone ramblings and obviously teleprompter-read lines detract from the initial story and her involvement fades out in the second half.
This aside, I would recommend Downtown to any pop-culture junkie seeking a fix.
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