Northwest

Coan Nichols and Rick Charnoski's Northwest opens with a dedication to those who “create reality”: those burnt-out skateboarders in the Northwest who realized that if they wanted gnarly places to trick, spin, and flip, they'd have to make their own mammoth skateparks, such as Burnside in Portland, Oregon, or the Orcas Island park in Washington. Shot in grainy 8mm that mirrors the DIY aesthetic of the subjects, the film doesn't provide much sociological insight into either the designers or the skaters, but rather seems to argue that these skateparks verge on genuine art and boast breathtaking urban design: a rather easily made point, considering the creative ways in which the bowls, loops, and ramps transcend typical empty-swimming pools. While the concrete playgrounds are impressive, however, their creators remain enigmas and once the skateparks are introduced, the film settles in for well-edited footage of fantastic amateur skaters at work. The subjects are gracefully athletic, but also frustratingly anonymous as they defy gravity to the tunes of little-known local bands such as Barnyard Playboys, The Insults, and Lubricated Goat. The DVD's extra outtakes run nearly half as long as the film itself, but also lack illuminating interviews. Not in the league of other skateboarding docs such as Dogtown & Z-Boys (VL-7/02) or even Nichols and Charnoski's previous film Fruit of the Vine (VL Online-2/03), this is recommended primarily for Pacific Northwest libraries and optional elsewhere. Auf: P. (D. Fienberg)