The War on Style.
Hank Bilous latest film exploring the difference between technical skills & self expression.
Fresh July 2024.
Words The North Face & Sam Smoothy | Images Chris Maunsell.
An artistic exploration of the relationship between technical skills and self-expression, Hank Bilous pries open the lid of his creative mind with his latest film, The War on Style. After years following the traditional pro-skiing pathway, Hank burst onto the international scene with an electric stint on the 2020 Freeride World Tour, grabbing two podiums & a 5th overall with his explosively unpredictable style.
Hank took a brief, but invaluable hiatus from skiing to finish his nursing degree and work as a registered nurse in the Gisbourne emergency department. This change of pace was an enriching life experience for Hank, helping to shape his perspective and ultimately create space for him to pursue his passion for skiing from an even more expressive standpoint.
Making the shift away rom the competitive sphere, Hank’s skiing has taken a turn into a more exploratory realm, where boundaries cease to exist and there are no limits on fun or creativity. The War on Style similarly blurs the boundaries between his familiar and unfamiliar worlds of skiing, surfing, nursing, skateboarding and music.
"I want viewers to create something meaningful in their own world - Just get the paints out and make a mess."
With a framework inspired by Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig, the film follows a similar vein of discussion of static and dynamic qualities in a theory of reality. Interpreting these ideas, and merging them with his own world experience, Hank explores the connections between his differing passions, the skill sets behind them, and the self-expression that mastery of such skills allows.
The War on Style is an audiovisual experience, with these thoughts propelled forward by Hank’s spoken word poetic observations gathered from what his refers to as his ‘big-little life.’
Hank’s ski technique is largely inspired by his love of surfing, bringing an aggressive elegance that comes from surfing, into a form of skiing that can only be described as – uniquely Hank.
The War on Style will tour New Zealand, as well as Sydney and Torquay, with intimate screenings presented by Hank. While select screenings will include a live show from Sam Wave, composer of the original soundtrack.
New Zealand Auckland – 30 July Find all event pages with ticketing for New Zealand https://thenorthface.co.nz/the-war-on-style-film-tour.html Australia Sydney – 2 & 3 October Tickets to be released soon. |
With questions a plenty, we tracked Hank down to pester him further.
What stage were you at in your life that allowed for the space for this creative expression?
I think there is always space for creative expression because every decision we make is a creative choice. This reality becomes less obvious to us as we grow up. We are taught to think within certain frameworks because shared ways of thinking help our society spin. These frameworks slowly indoctrinate us into the confines of conformity and the creative choice appears to become out of reach.
We reserve those creative choices for so called artists and we forget that we learned our limitations. When we are kids we haven’t learnt all that stuff yet and we are free to call a stick a snake or money, just an idea. Creative expression continues to have space in my life because I constantly remind myself that a stick can be a snake if I want and money really is just a silly little idea.
How do you hope The War on Style will affect people? How do you think people leaving the theatre will feel?
By walking the viewer though the different aspects of my big-little life from surfing to nursing, I want them to see that concepts I am talking about in the film can be applied universally. The film is not about skiing and it is not about surfing either. It is really about the idea that any technical skill gives you the opportunity to express yourself and that self-expression part really is worth striving for.
I hope the audience can apply that concept to their own life. The more creatively someone can apply that concept to their life the better in my eyes. How good would it be if nana saw the film and started flaring out a bit more with the knitting needles?!
Has writing always been a creative outlet for you?
No! Quite the opposite actually. I really struggled with reading and writing in school, something to do with not conforming to the rules if I remember right. That early school experience left a lasting impression and avoided it like the plague. I read my first book for pleasure in my first year of nursing school in 2019 and began writing recreationally a couple years later.
Although it was a frosty start, just like any technical skill all it takes is serving your apprenticeship in time and repetition then you will eventually figure it out. Once I got over the initial technical hump, I started to really enjoy it as a tool for self-expression.
Have you felt restricted by the limitations of competition when it comes to skiing?
Absolutely. However, I think some of the limitations forced upon you by competitive skiing are what make it so interesting to me. It is not often that the best skier in the field wins the competition. There are a variety of limitations that the whole field is contending with terrain, snowpack, weather, event origination and so on. Then there is a variety of limitations each rider personally faces from headspace to having the flu.
The real competition is with each rider against these limitations and every riders opponent will look different. The sooner you realise that we are all playing different games on the same field, the better.
How different is your existence to your youthful dreams of pro skiing?
I never really had any dreams of being a ‘pro skier’ as a kid. It has been more of a side effect of following my passion & curiosity. I have continued to crack on with this plan of attack and it has definitely helped me redefine my ideas of what a ‘pro skier’ could be. Who would have thought you could be a ‘pro skier’ living in Gisborne working full time as a Nurse?!
Where will your ski evolution go in the future?
Having a degree of mastery of a technical skill starts to shifts the sport from a physical exercise to a mental one. As a technical skill, there is of course more technical aspects within skiing to learn but they are far less interesting to me these days. I am much more excited about using skiing as a vehicle to express myself. Your personal expression comes from deep within the core of your being and is informed by your unique influence stew that is bubbling away down there.
I see my evolution as a skier being driven by that influence stew that is constantly evolving with each new inspiring ingredient that is added. It is more of a ground-up way of approaching progression than the top-down structure of traditional goal setting. To continually add to that stew in new and diverse ways by keeping my mind open and my influences broad is how I plan to drive my evolution as a skier and as a person.
What new skills do you hope to pick up yourself?
I think the biggest thing I want to keep learning is new skills themselves. It is such a fun and free time in the beginning of a learning journey. You don’t know all the rules yet and there is less in the way of your creativity. Also, the learning curve is steep so it keeps it exciting.
To learn something new on skis these days is often quite dangerous and I don’t want to expose myself to that level of risk that often.
The new skill I tried my hand at a few days ago was welding and the next I am keen to try is sewing. The more different things you can try the more obvious the connection between them become too. Welding and sewing are kind of just different ends of the same stick.
Why did you decide on spoken word poetry to deliver your thoughts in the film?
Originally the ideas that make up the meat & potatoes of the War on Style were written out long form, journal style. As they were written, there was never any intention for them to be anything more than another mangy page of my journal. So, when North Face approached me about doing a film that captures where I am at currently, I already had the story written. The stumbling block was that these ideas were quite dense in their original form. I decided to go use poetry as a way of making big ideas simpler.
Paint me a little scene of Hank at his desk jotting his thoughts down, what’s he ponderin’/listenin’/chewin’/viewin’?
Nearly exclusively I would be in my pink dressing gown, sitting at my second hand 1950’s Rimu school desk. I write everything out with pen & paper, only going digital when absolutely necessary. I find my most productive writing time when I have had coffee but haven’t yet eaten. So, I am often buzzing like an old fridge & hungry at the desk.
Usually burning Nag Champa incense in a pot plant to neutralise the coffee farts. I usually try to avoid music as I am very easily distracted but if I can hear other noises like the lawn mower or music in the lounge I will try to drown it out with my own tunes.
I often tend to play anti-establishment singer-songwriter stuff like Dylan, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Lou Read, Rodriguez but it never really works out because I always start listening too much to write.
How did you link up with SAMWAVE & what can you tell me about that collaboration for the film’s soundscape?
How kiwi is this…… we met in a paddock.
We were both at a mutual friend’s party at their coastal farm, camping out for a few days & nights. We were fast friends and instantly started collaborating on things like making the bonfire bigger & beatboxing haha. Only when we got back to civilization from this trip did we discover each other’s talents outside of the paddock.
Sam is a musician and also does a lot of sound design work commercially. I love that he isn’t confined to convention and isn’t afraid to try something just to see what happens. We have been talking about linking arms on a project like this for a while now, so he was an obvious choice when this project started bubbling away.
It has been a real treat to be privy to the inner workings of his mind throughout this project & I look forward to a beer in the paddock with him again soon.
What impact has this project had on your own life?
Well, the proof has been in the pudding. It has been a real test of the concepts explored in the film in my life personally. Writing a script, co-producing and directing were all new skills to me before we started this project. We also weaved in things that I am on the further down my learning journey like skiing and everything in between.
That is a part of why this project has been so fulfilling to me personally, as it has required so many different parts of me to do.
The other piece of the project puzzle is getting to work alongside my wingmen Chris & Sam. Those guys are frickin legends and working on this project has really solidified the idea for me that collaboration is much better than competition.
