Friday, August 06, 2004
Fruit Of The Vine
1999
Directed and produced by skaters Coan Nichols and Rick Charnoski, Fruit of the Vine is an interestingly simple movie about one specific topic: swimming pool skating. Pool skaters are a subculture within a subculture in the skating world. More rugged, simple and rustic than it's counterpart, Dogtown and Z Boys, this film explores and explains how swimming pool skating started on the West Coast in the mid-seventies and has exploded in the last 30 years with the development of skate parks.
Shot entirely in Super-8 film, Fruit of the Vine combines new and old footage of some of the best and most interesting "spots" where this type of skating goes down. Framed by a wide array of thrash metal and punk songs, this movie offers a no frills documentation of an exciting and carefree lifestyle.
For 70 minutes, the viewer follows skaters around the Southwest, Northwest and even the Northeast. Like the blonde, tan surfer boys in The Endless Summer (1966), these guys are looking for the ultimate place to ride. Instead of the search for the ultimate wave on tropical islands, the boys in Fruit of the Vine as well as their predecessors, have always used what society has thrown away: abandoned swimming pools, most of which are located in once-thriving cities and communities.
The dedication and determination of these pool skaters take you to the outskirts and underbelly of Southern California, the desolate abandoned stench of California's Salton Sea region, to the intense reserves of the Arizona desert. It also exposes you to the reasoning and hard work of skate park designers and developers, some who design for free. Why? As one skate park designer explains, "I do it for free because I don't want skate in a shitty skate park. If that means that I have to build it for free, then I will."
You really get a sense of the mentality and lifestyle of these skaters by watching this film. The voice-over narration and commentary adds to the depth of this movie by the likes of legendary skaters Lance Mountain, Steve Alba and David "Shaggy" Palmer. Some of these men have been skating pools since the mid 70s...and still dive in with fierce integrity and skill.
The quality of this documentary lay not in it's footage of the best skate moves you've ever seen. There are a lot of underground skate films that do that. Nor is it a polished, in depth, super produced masterpiece. You can get that from Dogtown and Z Boys.
For what it IS, though, this film was enjoyable and respectable. And it'll make you think twice the next time you see those skinny little skaters with their jeans falling halfway down their ass carrying a pair of bolt cutters heading towards an abandoned house in Southern California.
