Hardihood

Aiming to rectify the erroneous media-generated perception that extreme sports is yet another testosterone-driven closed club, debut filmmaker Nicole Hahn follows a few gnarly female mountain bikers through the rough and tumble world of downhill and cross country professional mountain biking. Loosely chronicling a week in the life of some professional racers, including 12-time World Cup winner Missy Giove, as they describe their training regimen, goof around, and psych themselves up for the big Sunday race, Hardihood also includes sketchy interviews with various personalities in the world of mountain biking, including Jacquie Phelan, former (and first) national champion and founder of the Women's Mountain Bike and Tea Society (WOMBATS); and Jen Klish, the first female professional bike mechanic, who also draws some nifty cartoons for the production. Although Hahn's style is both a bit unfocused and a little pretentious, it's also relentless in its high-octane homage to female athleticism, sporting tons of action, slick camera angles, rad tattoos, a speed metal soundtrack, and some too-hip-for-thou female bonding poetry scrolling across an outdoor digital bulletin board. More traditional, in-depth interviews would have rounded out these impressionistic portraits, but classic studio-shot, nicely-lit profiles are not quite as cool as getting down, dirty, and dangerous, and most viewers will enjoy watching this role reversal documentary, in which intense, tough, and talented female athletes tear up the screen. Recommended. [Note: the DVD includes bonus footage, a short, music tracks, and more.] Aud: H, C, P. (A. Cantú)