Pirates and Parkour: Part 1

Parkour, free running and tricking are urban sports involving treating our city landscapes as open-ended obstacle courses. These intensely athletic, skillful and, at times, extreme sports have gained publicity as a result of their use in numerous movies and ads. Examples include Casino Royale (2006), the Bourne series and, most significantly, David Belle’s remarkable District B13.

District B13

At the same time, parkour inspired game play that first appeared in the Tomb Raider videogames has become central to many of the most popular videogames of recent years, including Prince of Persia 2, Assassin’s Creed and Mirror’s Edge. There are pluses and minuses to trying to mimic parkour in videogames but we can strongly recommend Tomb Raider Anniversary on the Wii. The Wii’s motion controller does by far the best job of recreating the sensation of constant motion at the heart of parkour and free running.

Tomb Raider Anniversary

Parkour, free running and tricking are all types of acrobatics but there are clear differences of approach to each discipline. Parkour, which can be roughly translated as ‘obstacle course’, is about moving through the urban landscape with maximum efficiency to access urban space and escape pursuit. Free running is about gaining the freedom to move through urban landscapes as a form of self-expression and self-development. Tricking is less concerned with moving through urban landscapes and typically involves performing a range of acrobatic stunts.

B13 Ultimatum (Standard Edition) DVD

The starting points for many traceurs/ traceuses, (which translates as “tracer” or “sketcher” but can be translated as ‘pathfinder’), are District 13, and more recently, its sequel District 13: Ultimatum. Both are packed with outstanding parkour and we hardly noticed that they were foreign language films. The French urban hip-hop soundtrack is a touch intense at the start of the first movie but everything else about both movies is pretty stunning.

We’re going to post about getting off the sofa and trying out some parkour next time. Thanks to Ashley Holland for the Back Flip image.