Dragonslayer (2011)
dir. Tristan Patterson
Don't think of the 80s fantasy movie--this is something quite different. Director Tristan Patterson created this subtle documentary by periodically dropping in on pro skater Josh "Skreech" Sandoval over the course of a year or so. Skreech's life is not the glamorous one that many people associate with the professional world of extreme sports--the contests he competes in over the course of this film are nothing like the polished, commercial spectacle of the X-Games. Instead, these events are held at rundown skate parks and even some secluded areas that look like they were created for some other usage entirely, then abandoned. At one point, after winning third place in a contest, Skreech is presented with a new skateboard deck that has cash and gift certificates taped to it. This moment is among many that illustrate the difference between the skate culture that you see in video games, magazines, and on ESPN, and the one that Skreech and many other skaters are part of.
When he's not competing in skate contests, Skreech and his friends spend much of their time looking around their area for abandoned pools to skate. The first scene in the film shows Skreech cleaning out an abandoned pool behind a motel that is filled with three feet of black, scummy standing water when he discovers it. He spends hours cleaning it out, emptying it with a bucket and getting his clothes and body very dirty in the process. When he finally gets it into skateable condition, he's only there for an hour or so before a neighbor threatens to call the cops and he has to leave. This nomadic existence is the stuff of Skreech's day to day life, we soon learn. At the beginning of the film, he's living in a tiny room containing a bare mattress and a pile of clothes and garbage. He spends most of his time hanging out at skate parks and punk-rock party houses, looking for drugs and opportunities to skate. It quickly becomes clear that he has no regular income and very little money on a day-to-day basis, that he owns little more than his skateboard (which is in less than perfect condition), and that he's basically drifting through life. I was reminded of some of the bikers I read about in Hunter S. Thompson's Hell's Angels, men who spend so much of their time riding motorcycles that they're unable to keep regular jobs, eventually losing their homes and family connections and ending up owning nothing but the bike they're riding and the clothes on their back. Other than the fact that he rides a skateboard, Skreech is much the same as these men. Skreech is a big fan of punk rock (he listens to or wears t-shirts for bands like the Germs and Rudimentary Peni), and his life seems like a literal embodiment of Johnny Rotten's cry of "No Future."
This doesn't seem to bother Skreech too much, who spends much of the movie getting high and thinking about nothing beyond his next opportunity to skate, but director Patterson includes many details that make clear what the downside of this lifestyle are. By the middle of the film, we see that Skreech has lost even his trashed-out punk house bedroom, and is now living in a tent in the backyard of a friend's house. Skreech says that his friend has "hooked it up fat" by allowing him to come into the house once a day to use the kitchen and the bathroom, but the bitter irony there is obvious without anyone calling attention to it. Worst of all, he has only a tenuous relationship with his six-month-old son, whose mother Skreech couldn't get along with. He sees the baby occasionally, bringing him along on outings with his current girlfriend, a braces-wearing teenager named Leslie, but most of the time, his son is not a part of his life, a fact only underscored by the scene in which Skreech gets his son's name tattooed on his arm.
A friend of mine attempted to watch this film as well, but couldn't get through it. "I've got friends just like that guy," he said. "Watching him sitting around the skatepark getting high and bumming smokes off people--it just made me think of them. It was depressing. I had to turn it off." Patterson's direction doesn't make any judgments about Skreech's lifestyle, and indeed, to some people, the life he lives in this film might come off as totally badass. But my friend is right--Skreech's no-future lifestyle doesn't really seem sustainable, and there are hints towards the end of the movie that he realizes that himself. The moments in which Skreech shreds a pool or has an awesome run at a skate contest seem glorious, but the question that Dragonslayer ultimately prompted in my mind was whether the sacrifices Skreech was making to live a lifestyle entirely focused around skateboarding were worth it. Patterson's direction is very well done, and he's created a really interesting narrative slice of one skater's life. But depending on your perspective of the story he's telling, this film might bum you out.