Director: Adam Bhala Lough
Stars: Various personalities from the world of street skating.
The Motivation is a documentary that takes a look at the Street League Championships in New York. There are eight competitors and the film explores their lives and their preparations for the competition, as well as examining the history of the competition and the rise in popularity of the tournament.
I found this documentary to be fairly good but I feel that it lingers too long on the lives of the skaters. While it was necessary to show their lives, some of their stories became repetitive and it lingered too long on certain skaters. However, I’m coming at this from a layman’s perspective so if you’re into the world of skating then perhaps you’ll appreciate the behind the scenes look at these personalities a little more, because you’ll already be familiar with their reputation as skaters.
So I found it middling for the most part, but where it really explodes into life is the final ten/fifteen minutes when the competition begins. I wish that there had been more footage of the tournament and less time spent with the skaters, for the competition was exciting and exhilarating, and it was incredibly tense as the film showed the competitors being eliminated one by one.
One aspect that I particularly enjoyed and is worthy of note is the attitude of the skaters. At the end they all rushed over to congratulate the winner, even though they had just endured the bitter taste of defeat. It showed great professionalism and great heart, that these men are not just rivals but a community.
