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Snowblind
Director: Vikram Jayanti, USA; 2009

January 28, 2010 | 7:00 PM
Fifth Avenue Cinemas, 2110 Burrard Street, Vancouver

The Iditarod is the most grueling sled dog race in the world - a thousand mile trip from the south to the north of Alaska, in the deepest cold and the most treacherous conditions. Snowblind follows 23-year-old Rachael Scdoris, who is legally blind, as she trains herself and her dogs in a quest to beat her previous Iditarod best of 12 days. Accompanied by Joe Runyan, who won the race 15 years earlier and serves as Rachael’s “visual interpreter”, the pair set out to best Rachael’s own personal record and make history.

The determination behind Rachael’s attempt at Iditarod fame is alternately inspiring and infuriating as we witness two weeks of exhilaration, danger and exhaustion, captured on film day and night. Like all Iditarod competitors, Rachael risks hallucinations, crashes and the constant threat of going off course in the immense Alaskan wilderness. But she's also challenged by rivals and critics who scrutinize her every move and question her unorthodox methodologies. Even within Rachael’s own team there are questions about the wisdom of her actions, as she and Joe Runyan clash over race strategy. The relationship between Rachael and the film’s director Jayanti is also deeply tested by a series of technical disasters. One of the film’s helicopter camera crews crashes in the bush, while another snowmobile camera team ends up in icy crevasse. Finally, the only camera left is the miniature camera attached to Rachael’s helmet.

One of the film’s most difficult and contentious aspects is in the treatment of the sled dogs. Rachael’s family business is raising Husky-Pointer crosses, small, hardy dogs, that despite their desire to please, and their immensely big hearts, lack the resources of the Alaskan huskies, used by most of the other race competitors. Fitted with booties (to protect the pads of their feet), heart monitors, and in constant need of veterinary ministrations, these little dogs are at the very heart of this massive trek. Sometimes it is simply too much, as one dog drops in the traces and is brought back by a hysterical Rachael, who performs mouth to nose resuscitation while on the trail. As the race progresses and her dogs drop out one by one, Rachael is forced to make a desperate gamble to continue her quest. As much an epic adventure as it is a complex investigation of the nature of ability (for both human and canines), Snowblind is a challenging exploration of what happens when you push beyond all reasonable limits and break new ground.

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