Documentary film deserves the kind of creative boost woven into “DRAWN.” Yes, it can be quite enough when the content and personalities engage you. In the extreme adventure and sports category of filmmaking, it can be enough to be treated to the visuals and flavors of distant locales and gnarly challenges. More savvy than creative, it typically adds to storytelling resonance when the narrative dials in a devoted family life, especially being involved with the young’uns.
While doing all this, “DRAWN” sews its primary stitch – homage to a fallen friend. Jeremy Collins follows through with an idea he was going to experience with his climbing mentor, except that dear friend Jonny Coop dies in a climbing accident. So, Collins sets out to spread Coop’s ashes at the tops of specially chosen peaks in the North, South, East, and West of an adventure-rich globe.
What’s the creative boost? Sketch art. Watching this well-rounded cinematic journey unfold, including obstacles and life affirming interactions that pretty much defines adventure, the filmmakers add the artistic grace of Jeremy Collins’s gift for drawing. The sketches not only set an early appreciative tone; they mingle real and fanciful vision. They record things that didn’t get captured on camera, things that needed a different lens, including dreamy and mythic visions. Several other creative techniques, all in well directed proportion, help draw a very satisfying movie session.