A Love Letter to Skiing and the World's Most Famous Jam Band: Mountains of the Moon Review

I’ll be honest: the idea of a “4D” movie theater doesn’t interest me.

To me, movie-watching is about sitting down in a big, fat chair, getting comfortable, and letting the actors, cinematographers, and directors do the work. I don’t want to get sprayed with a firehose or smell something I don’t expect, which, yes, one 4D theater advertises as “scent.” Heck, even those 3D glasses make me feel sick.

Yet, not so long ago, I found myself perched in a seat at the Presidio Theatre as a fog machine emitted gobs of vapor and fake snowflakes—little rectangles of white paper—fell from the ceiling. And I was far from unhappy about the theater’s modest take on the 4D phenomena. 

The movie certainly helped. Beyond that indoor blizzard, on the big screen, things were happening that didn’t look real. A vast pillow field glowed in shades of red, blue, and purple. Glowing figures cut through the snow, little blobs of light that would occasionally float in the air, twist this way or that, and drop back down in a puff of powder. Before long, the scene changed.

Towering rock walls, still glowing in neon colors, replaced the backcountry. On them, a new cadre of athletes worked their magic and ventured upwards. 

By now, you probably know what this is about. Chris Benchetler’s trippy, indescribable (I’m trying) Mountains of the Moon first debuted last fall and made an unavoidable splash. But until only a few days ago, it wasn’t anywhere online. You had to see it in person, and I hadn’t. So, I jumped at the opportunity to catch it in the city.

Somewhere between a Grateful Dead homage (Benchetler, clearly, is a huge fan), a moving art installation, and an action-sports movie, the film, I quickly learned, is a technical feat. The skiers, climbers, mountain bikers, and surfers all wore custom-built skeleton suits that glowed, thanks to LEDs. Other lighting equipment introduced zig-zagging lasers and painted the natural environments, most of which appeared at night.

The connection to the world’s most famous jam band came via an animated intro, the kaleidoscopic visual language, and, of course, the music. At the San Francisco showing I attended, the Terrapin Family Band expertly supplied the score live. 

What most stood out was the interplay between those tunes, the footage, and the editing. The Dead famously improvised within some songs and mixed up their setlist, so each night, the audience often got a different performance than the one that came before. Mountains of the Moon is, like all movies, a static recording, but it still captured that free-wheeling attitude.

Beyond the intro, the movie opens with a jazzy ski segment, punctuated with wizardly meditations from Paul Stamets, the famed mycologist (to those wondering: mushroom expert). His voice serves as a guiding force throughout the film, nudging the audience towards an understated thesis: everything you’re watching, from the music to the landscapes and the broader natural world, is connected. Along the way, I lost track of time—no, I hadn’t indulged in any fungi myself, though the movie made me wonder if I had—and the scenery shifted discreetly.

We were on a mountaintop, then a crag, then the forest, then alongside a mushroom, then floating above a massive hip jump as the music reached a frenzied crescendo, then under the sea, then back in the mountains—or some hallucinatory order of events along those lines. It mirrored a jam session and marked a departure from the traditional segment-based ski movie model recalling, in spirit, past epics that covered new ground, like All.I.Can. You don’t watch Mountains of the Moon so much as let it wash over you. 

And while, yes, the result is absolutely Deadhead fan service, Mountains of the Moon isn’t the movie equivalent of a cheap Stealie sticker. It’s an honest-to-God and well-studied love letter, co-signed by longtime Dead drummer Mickey Hart, who appears in the film. At least from a viewer’s perspective, Mountains was without compromise and seemed to offer an unvarnished glimpse inside Benchetler’s ever-energetic brain (and those of numerous others who made the movie possible). Mushrooms fittingly got more airtime than equipment close-ups and, even with a long list of supporting brands, the film didn’t feel the least bit commercial. You get the sense Benchetler wanted to do something daring and pulled it off as imagined. The lingering question is this: what could possibly be next?

Benchetler probably has something in mind and, maybe, it’ll go even further beyond skiing and action sports. Still, his latest work remains a shred flick at its core. The talent, including Michelle Parker, Sam Kuch, and Benchetler himself, holds it all together. They’re on another planet, to be sure, but they’re still hucking tricks and scoring powder turns. That makes it an easy entry point to the Dead and may even convert some new fans who came initially for the skiing. Even if you aren’t into expanding your consciousness (it’s worth a try) or on the “bus,” Mountains of the Moon is one hell of a joy ride that takes ski movies—a difficult genre for innovation—another big step higher on the boot pack. 

You can now rent or buy Mountains of the Moon on Amazon Prime Video.

Related: Chris Benchetler’s New Film Takes His Grateful Dead Collaboration To The Next Level