20 SECONDS OF JOY (D: Jens Hoffmann, Germany). 60 minutes. Some subtitles. Saturday (April 19), 1:45 pm, Royal Tuesday (April 22), 1:30 pm, Cumberland. Rating: NNNN
Like the recent Steep, 20 Seconds Of Joy is a sports documentary that wants to understand the whys of an extreme sport as well as the hows. The sport is BASE jumping, where people leap off bridges, tall buildings and cliffs for a free-fall descent broken by the deployment of a parachute. It’s terribly risky, and people die doing it, which is what makes Jenn Hoffmann ‘s subject, 30-year-old Norwegian jumper Karina Hollekim, so fascinating.
Hollekim acknowledges that she’s pushing her luck with increasingly complicated jumps — some of which involve a wing suit that makes her look like a flying squirrel — but can’t stop chasing the high. And that’s just the first half.
Norm Wilner
