Director Claudio Von Planta
Score 4/6

Chasing the Jet Stream follows the pioneering adventure of Marc Hauser, a Swiss entrepreneur and motivational speaker who wants to become the first skydiver in the world jumping into a hurricane force jet stream at 8,000 to 10,000 meters altitude.

I am willing to assume that more than a few of you have heard about the concerns that have been raised about the concerns that have been raised about Wind turbines over the noise produced by the rotor blades, visual impacts, and deaths of birds and bats that fly into the rotors (avian/bat mortality). Now the concept of harnessing the jet streams to produce electricity that the documentary is trying to highlight is kind of amazing. Especially when you take into consideration the amount of energy the jet streams can produce. The methods of the start-up companies that where demonstrated in the documentary have what could described as a ‘that’s so cool, why aren’t we doing that now?’ feel to them. Part of me would have liked to have seen more of deeper dive into these methods of energy production (if only just to see more footage of the drones that the start-up companies used), but now that sitting here writing my review I realise that there was probably a very finite amount of information that the documentary makers would have been able to give the audience before running the risk of information overload.
I’m not that familiar with director Claudio von Planta’s work though looking at his filmography it looks like that he has made some interesting documentaries. Marc Hauser was good in front of the camera but there were multiple times when I wondered just how crazy Hauser was for wanting to attempt a feat such as this.
Throughout Chasing the Jet Stream there is some stunning shots, but for some reason I found myself being reminded of Guy Martin (particularly the work he did on his series Speed) several times throughout the documentary.