Super Frenchie (2020) User Reviews

If You Enjoyed Free Solo, This Documentary is forYou

[llboll · 7/10 · 20 March 2021]

Super Frenchie is a very good film that documents the efforts of base jumper/ski-base jumper Matthias Giraud to find ever-more-challenging cliffs to ski off.

The film spends some time addressing the inherent selfishness of extreme athletes like Mr. Giraud, for whom family and friends must take second place to the "need" of the athletes to challenge themselves to the rush of close brushes with death.

A serious injury coincides with the birth of Mr. Giraud's son and, very briefly, he seems to embrace that responsibility over the call of the steep cliffs. But, predictably, he's soon back on the hunt for the adrenaline highs of nature at its roughest.

The film seems less-personal than the recent Free Solo's examination of Alex Honnold's parallel pursuit of free-climbing challenges, but its seen-from-numerous-angles action sequences are just as nerve-wracking.

Entertaining look at the amazing ski-basing feats of Matthias Giraud

[paul-allaer · 7/10 · 6 June 2021]

"Super Frenchie" (2020 release; 77 min.) is a documentary about the life and times of Matthias Giraud (a/k/a "Super Frenchie"). As the movie opens, he is on top of some mountain, about ready to ski down and then parachute off into thin air. As he does, an avalanche starts coming down the mountain. Jaw-dropping footage. We then go back in time, as Matthias and his parents reflect back on his youth and how he developed his appetite for skiing at a young age. At this point we are less than 10 min. Into the movie...

Couple of comments: this is the feature-length documentary debut of director-producer-editor Chase Ogden. He seemingly has collected footage from over a decade as he follows around Matthias Giraud in his quest to base-jump and/or ski-base from whatever mountain or bridge that he comes across, while also starting a young family and pondering the issue whether it is worth the risks he takes. The first half of the film is an amazing collection of death-defying jumps, one after another. After a while you kinda lose your sense of amazement, but then about halfway into it, there is a dramatic change (no, I'm not going to spoil, sorry). When all is said and done, I felt quite invested in watching this, and how this guy pursues his passion while calculating carefully the risks that he is taking time after time. But of course in the end it is all about watching the eye-popping footage of his feats.

"Super Frenchie" opened out of the blue at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati this weekend. The Saturday early evening screening where I saw this at turned out to be a private screening: I was literally the only person in the theater. IF you have any interest in watching dare-devil death-defying extreme sports, I'd readily suggest you check this out, be it in the theater, on Amazon Instant Video or another streaming service, and soon also on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.