Weekend warm-up: The Collective »Explorersweb
“The Collective” features 45 minutes of epic skiing and mountaineering, with reflections from some of the world’s best freestyle skiers.
The opening scenes ask to “travel through the emotional dimension with the collective.”
They tour Canada, Norway, Finland, Japan, Switzerland and France. The images fly between the faces of the wild mountain, classic powder skiing and train tricks, but the thread of the film is that skiing is collective.
Everyone is there building connections, memories and adventures. Their inherent love of skiing extends beyond language and individual abilities.
“Some call it tribal mentality, others a common sense of purpose… The collective is more than the sum of its parts. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from – it feels good to be a part of something special. ”
Message, but no narration
Interestingly, the film doesn’t follow the narrative. You don’t watch the team try to achieve something, and the film doesn’t build for some big scene-stealing moment. Instead, you look at skiing in all its purity and splendor as well as its ability to make connections.
Everyone has their own style and specialty. As a group, they move easily between huge peaks and the city center. From time to time, the collective breaks up into smaller groups to push boundaries. “When you see your friend doing something crazy, you want to do it too,” one says. “They’re forcing you to be better.”
After starting the big jumps in Norway, the scene moves to Switzerland. Here we have our first divorce group, the duo of Sam Anthamatten and Andrew Pollard. Swiss-born Anthamatten was originally more of a climber, but in 2009 he shifted his focus to free riding. He shows Pollard the ropes in his homeland.
Pollard has been competing in the Freeride World Tour since 2019, when he won the Newcomer of the Year award. He is fearless and tells the camera that he was able to take his skiing in Switzerland to new heights thanks to the expertise he gained in Anthamatten in the Swiss Alps.
Women in a country park
Next, we move on to cross-country skiing, which is a sport typically associated with male skiers. Kelly Sildaru, Caroline Claire, Giulia Tanno and Sarah Hoefflin, who hold several Youth Olympic, Olympic and X Games medals with each other, quickly show why this is no longer the case.
The rain that turns into ice in Hakuba, Japan, forces skiers for a moment to change from a deep powder hike to a more cultural adventure. Then in Finland, city skiing begins dramatically when Will Berman ranks his elbow. Now with one man down, the remaining trio offers one of the film’s highlights. Their view of tricks and jumps is not very surprising as it is their specialty. But seeing it in the heart of Helsinki is almost incomprehensible. Usually things limited to large slopes and terrain parks are somehow recreated in cramped and unusual places.
In Canada, another experienced trio will take one of them on their first cross-country trip. “Most of the time, it was more fun for them to watch me,” the rookie said when another found him coming up with new ideas as he bumped through the powder.
The last, the entire group segment in France presents Collective in all its glory. The talent of some of the best skiers in the world is breaking the screen.
about the author
Rebecca is a freelance writer and science teacher in the UK.
She is an avid traveler and has had the good fortune to travel in her backpack around Africa, South America and Asia. With a background in marine biology, he is interested in everything related to the oceans and wants to dive and swim in open water in as many seas as possible.
His areas of expertise include open water sports, marine nature and adventure tourism.