I caught the Salt Lake City premiere of Matchstick Production’s Ruin and Rose on Thursday night, and walked away stoked about the upcoming ski season. That’s really why we go to ski movie screenings, isn’t it? We gather with the tribe, catch swag thrown by pro skiers, have a beer, and drool over footage of athletes trenching in impossibly deep powder or throwing back flips off cliffs while simultaneously dodging sluff (and sometimes avalanches). Ruin and Rose succeeded on raising the anticipation of snow falling, but all is not rosy with this ski film.
Ruin and Rose is a huge departure for Matchstick Productions. This year, their annual ski movie is not the typical in-your-face porn, but rather a thoughtful narrative about global warming, climate change, war, and what our future might look like if we humans continue on our course of rampant resource consumption. The end result is no more snow to ski on, and this narrative is told through the perspective of a child living in this post-apocalyptic future. His name is Charlie, as he finds old ski equipment and magazines in a sand-blasted house that motivates him to seek out Xanadu, a mythical mountain that may be the key to human survival and the return of life on earth.
The subtext is that skiing (or skiers) as in “we” can save the world. In the case of the movie, skiing is the last hope for mankind as Charlie uses his skis to hike through the “Big Empty” to find the mountain of his dreams. It’s heavy stuff told through spectacular cinematography. Ben Sturgulewski, formerly of Sweetgrass Productions, is writer and director of Ruin and Rose, and his art-house fingerprints are all over this thing. The tale of Charlie and the Big Empty are interwoven with ski segments one would expect and those too are expertly shot. One powder sequence in particular near the beginning of the movie made me quiver with jealousy and wish I had skis on my feet right ‘effin now.
Storyline and cinematography aside, I did have some issues with this film. First, the editing. Throughout the entire movie, I wanted to yell at the screen, “show us the rest of the line!” Or, “show us if he stuck that landing!” The ski segments are edited too much to the point that we never get to revel in a skier’s incredible line. Experiencing what these athletes can do, vicariously, is why I love to watch ski movies. But instead, the editors chose to give us one pretty shot after another. Sometimes all we would see in a given line is one or two turns before the edit cuts to another pretty shot. It reeks of modern Warren Miller movies that cater to the MTV crowd – those with short attention spans who need a rock or hip-hop soundtrack to keep their eyes glued to the screen.
In contrast to the blitzkrieg of editing in the ski segments, Charlie’s desert sequences are much too long and slow. While I am a fan of Sturgulewski’s past work, (Solitaire is my all-time favorite ski movie) I feel like he went too far this time around. Charlie’s story could have been told much more efficiently and it still would have gotten the point across… hell, I think it could have even been done without the extremely repetitive narration and it would have gotten the point across. Ultimately, these long, drawn out sequences in the sand made the audience restless and fidgety. The guy sitting behind me even yelled, “show us some skiing!”
To further reinforce my disappointment in the ski segment editing, athlete edits from the film’s footage have been popping up on social media, and they are much more in line with what a good ski segment should be (in my opinion). Here is Eric Hjorleifson’s athlete edit, and it’s a perfect example of what I expected when watching Ruin and Rose, but didn’t get.
Eric Hjorleifson RUIN AND ROSE Athlete Edit – 4K from mspfilms on Vimeo.
Damn that gets the blood pumping, doesn’t it? You see most of the ski line being skied. You get more POV footage. You get to hear his breathing and the sound of small avalanches running past him. That’s the stuff right there, and no quick cuts or loud music was needed to make the segment magic. The narration in Ruin and Rose talks about how magic left the world, but there’s little magic in the film itself. It simply tries too hard and comes off as self-indulgent.
I sound really negative, and I don’t mean to be. I really enjoyed Ruin and Rose overall and I appreciate what the filmmakers set out to accomplish. I applaud Matchstick Productions for trying something different instead of mailing in the status quo. Good storytelling is key to a good ski movie, but Ruin and Rose just takes too long allowing its story to unfold.
the movie sucked. call it what it is. slow, preachy, environmental propaganda for the soft-headed.
the charlie crap was over 40 minutes of a 60 minute film.
lame.
Based on what I heard from others at the screening, many people felt the same as you about the film.
Writer is right on point, Sturgulewski’s did went way too far this time. His other project ‘VALHALLA’ was a great movie IMO. It has such a different vibe from other ski movie but still at it’s core it is a ski movie, a story about looking at winter from the vision of a child… that’s something we can all related too. Ruin and Rose is about a child in a post-apocalyptic world and his journey trying to find the ‘mystic mountain’. The movie mainly focus on his journey (half of the movie actually) and the ski segment actually feels out of place in the narration. The ski segment is just there for the sake of ‘necessities’ because it’s a ski movie. There is one urban segment in an abandoned stadium. Sadly there are no good features there you almost feel the rider feel bored jipping there. The location was picked basically it has a post-apocalyptic look and the rider’s talent go to waste.
Saw this movie with my family and was sorely dissappointed. I felt the audience was taken advantage of and a very poorly written environmental message was presented. The repetitive child story (using a child to tell the story felt manipulative) lacked substance and it was a cross between a very bad environmental movie with some skiing thrown in there. Even the skiing was boring…we went for a ski movie to be inspired by nature and the companionship that goes with it and left dissappinted and disillusioned…should we ski at all…what should we be doing differently….where was the human element and the fun associated with this amazing sport? I have to add the writing was horrible. Took me 1/2 the movie to figure out the story and make the connection to skiing and the desert. Really…if you want to see a movie about the environment- dont go see this (go see an inconvenient truth). If you want to see a pre-season inspiration for the sport you love-definitely do not go see this. Save your money