Heaven (Fully Flared Intro Video Remix)

Directed by Spike Jonze and Ty Evans, Heaven is an excerpt from their acclaimed skateboarding film Fully Flared, and essentially acts as a music video for the titular song by UNKLE. Beautiful slow-motion footage of skateboarders doing what they do best combines with seamless editing to create quite a powerful and emotive meditation on the skill and art involved in skating.

The sense of freedom and escapism that must be experienced while skating at this level, combined with the thrill and danger of it all, blasts in emotive and glorious slow motion from the screen.

Initially unfolding as a simple, though thoroughly compelling, documentation of skateboarding; something occurs halfway through which immediately elevates the skaters to the status of celestial beings, congregating in a concrete landscape to participate in some rites of passage and ultimately transcendental inauguration that culminates in a baptism of fire, exploding concrete and plumes of apocalyptic dust.

The gradual build up of the melodic music that coincides with the visual climax of explosions and flying debris is effortlessly spine-tingling.

Heaven is a fitting celebration of the ultimate euphoria and danger of thrill-seeking.