180 Degrees South: Conquerors of the Useless Premiers in Portland (A Review)

The rain didn’t stop hundreds of fans from crowding the doors at Portland’s Hollywood theatre in anticipation of the premier of 180 Degrees South: Conquerors of the Useless. It’s difficult to say precisely how many turned out for the much-anticipated premier (the theater, which seats 468 people, was sold out if that puts things into perspective), but it is safe to say that few, if any of them went home disappointed.

Directed by Chris Malloy, 180 Degrees South follows the story of surf-mountaineer Jeff Johnson on his six-month quest to summit a peak named Corcavado in Chilean Patagonia, a journey inspired by a soon-to-be-legendary 1968 road trip taken by Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins -  founders of Patagonia and The North Face, respectively. Johnson’s journey provides a narrative thread that manages to be both dangerous and compelling enough to draw viewers into the heart of Patagonia, without being so overwhelming as to drown out the wisdom and (often) hilarious witticisms exchanged during friendly banter between Chouinard and Tompkins. While it has several overlapping narratives, at its core, 180 Degrees South is a story about searching for meaning beyond adventure, and about the importance of fighting to protect natural places – two things we are passionate about here at Wend as well. I felt this theme was summed up best by Johnson when he says, “…to love a place, you have a duty to protect it and to love a place, you must know it first.”

Watching this movie is reminiscent of sitting around a campfire with a couple of kickass grandpas. As Johnson’s story unfolds, so does the background story about Chouinard and Tompkins’s original trip. Scenes such as Johnson and his crew-mates making a daring salvage of the broken mast from their sailboat, then repairing it in between surf breaks on the coast of Easter Island serve to stir the embers, while scenes featuring two of the most prodigious figures of the outdoor industry discussing Buddhism while drinking mate near a steaming kettle in a tin shanty make the wood crackle. For every trial and tribulation that Johnson experiences on screen, director Chris Malloy unleashes a story about Chouinard or Tompkins that not only one-ups Johnson’s, it blows it out of the water. But 180 Degrees South is not an adventure-measuring contest. Malloy weaves in the background stories with subtlety, allowing the two iconic business founders to serve as foils – voices of learned, encouraging wisdom to Johnson’s relatively young pursuit.

And no campfire grandpa analogy would be complete without mentioning something about random bits of bawdy, unarguable knowledge. Yvon’s got this one covered in 180 Degrees South. At one point, in reference to the wealthy adventurers that pay Sherpas to drag them up Everest and who pay for helicopters to drop them above the treeline, Chouinard says, “when you compromise the process, you’re an asshole when you start out and you’re an asshole when you finish.” Make no mistake about it though. Chouinard may be in his seventies, but in the film he appears more mountain goat than grandpa as he accompanies Johnson over mountain and jungle terrain, bushwacking and climbing as if the forty years since his original road trip to the same location had affected nothing but his pocketbook.

180 Degrees South is a documentary, but the fact that the director is a Patagonia ambassador and that the entire film was made possible in large part by grants from Patagonia, is naturally apparent in the film. While it is impossible to ignore some of the drawn-out Patagoniaporn shots (such as the one of world-champion surfer and Johnson colleague Keith Malloy fly fishing), the director doesn’t allow them to interfere with the stories being told or undercut his film’s integrity. The really noticeable product shots appear only during times of story transition, often during beautifully shot montages when you’re too busy enjoying the soundtrack and action footage to even care. If you’re worried about it (and I know people who were), this is not a Patagonia catalog for the big screen. In my opinion, you would have to be a real outdoor industry insider (and a pain in the ass too, probably) for the sponsor product placement to change your outlook on this film. But it is there and at some point you will probably notice it.

When 180 Degrees South ended the Hollywood theatre came alive with hundreds of heads turning side-to-side and nodding, as applauding audience members shared what appeared to be a general overall approval for the film. Granted, since what I estimate to be 100% of the audience was made up of sporty outdoors types who waited out in the rain to see it, approval may have been a foregone conclusion for this one; but overall, the crowd seemed to have been satisfied to have exchanged dry clothes to see it. I know I was.

Or then again, maybe we all just felt inspired at seeing what a couple of dirt bags on a road trip can accomplish with nothing more than their surf boards, chalk bags and the desire to engage and conquer an entire wilderness of the seemingly useless.

Check out the trailer, below.