By Jonathan S. Gang

Labeling a film like Signatures with a genre is a difficult prospect. The ski/snowboard/telemark/no-board film by upstart film company Sweetgrass Productions exists in the grey area between straight-ahead ski porn, documentary, and Planet Earth-style nature film. Just about the same amount of time is dedicated to nature footage and Japanese-language interviews about the spiritual side of skiing as to skiers and riders cutting through the fluffy white Hokkaido powder.

This gorgeously-shot movie is much easier to define by what it is not. It is not a wild helicopter-shot big mountain huckfest, like last year's Travis Rice vehicle That's it That's All or many of Teton Gravity Research's high-flying films. It is certainly not your run of the mill, big-name-pro-centric park, pipe, and rail-saturated flick. In fact, it aggressively eschews the trademarks of both these genres, opting instead for a much slower pace and an understated aesthetic.

Gone are the superhuman-feats of your average ski-porn. There are no double-cork 1260s, 150-foot cliff bombings, or 25-stair handrails to be found here. The film's main focus is snow, powder snow, and lots and lots of it. Signatures documents a winter and spring spent living and riding in Hokkaido, Japan. The skiers and riders are faceless behind their goggles, hats, and massive plumes of fresh powder kicked up by their skis and boards. Little indication, beyond the occasional first name, is given of who is riding what or when. Most of the terrain is fairly mellow. Aside from the occasional extreme steep or rocky pillow line, there is little that would faze someone who can ride the whole mountain at place like, say, Crested Butte or Arapahoe Basin. It even includes an extensive section of riding on thin, crusty spring snow.

However, none of this makes Signatures a boring film. It doesn't aim to pump your adrenaline. What it wants to do is take your breath away. The movie presents the riding of snow as a thing of grace and beauty. Shot in picture-perfect HD, with nearly every shot in slow motion, the cinematographers make every effort to capture the beauty of the skiers' and riders' movements and the terrain that they are covering in equal measure. As much loving attention is given to every single cutback turn as to any aerial trick.

Breaking up the scenes of riding are several subtitled Japanese-language interviews with skiers, equipment designers, and filmmakers. Topics range from the similarities between snowboarding and calligraphy, to detailed descriptions of the spring flora of Hokkaido, to the way a person's entire life story can be expressed in one turn.

These hushed, contemplative conversations, combined with copious nature shots of trees, flowers, and rivers, serve to create a sense of place, of the changing seasons, and of the way these Japanese skiers and riders view the mountains they are riding. In this way, Signatures becomes less concerned with the individual accomplishments of certain skiers or snowboarders and more a film about a place and its connection to the people who live and ski there. Hokkaido itself is the star of the movie. Sweetgrass Productions has managed to take the ego-serving tendencies of most modern ski and snowboard film out of the picture. As anyone who's seen That's It That's All or just about any other recent film like it can attest, that is no small feat in the modern, corporate sponsorship-driven world of the ski video.

For more information on the film, check out Sweetgrass Productions.