“How can you express everything that you want to somebody you love, knowing that if you don’t, that might be the last opportunity that you have? That is a reality that we all face, but for BASE jumpers, the risk of death sometimes results in something amazing and unexpected – love. This is the real story of a pure love between two friends in the face of risk and tragedy,” reads the Vimeo caption of this archival GoPro footage of BASE jumping partners Matt Blank and Ian Flanders’ many adventures all over the world.When Matthew Blank and Ian Flanders set off for a routine jump to a river sandwiched between two towering mountain canyons in Kemaliye, Turkey almost a year ago, there were few doubts in anyone’s minds that the two would pull it off smoothly – like they always did in their past hundreds of base jumps all over the world. But as fate would have it, a freak accident happened when Flander’s feet got entangled with a parachute chord spinning him to his death in the rocky gorge below.What is impressive with this video pieced together by filmmaker Anson Fogel was it showed the moments before Flander’s death jump. In a scene filled with tense, Matt describes the seconds before Ian’s leap of death. “We were jumping off a cable car. Incredibly easy, one of the easiest jumps we’ve ever done. He gave the fist and the five like he always do. He turns around and do a backflip”Matt and Ian’s partnership goes way back when they first met in 2004. They started off as rock climbing buddies but eventually fell in love with the sport of BASE jumping when they figured they could just fly straight to their cars from any peak they conquer. “Climbing is the kind of sport that is fun to have done, but not to do in the moment,” Blank tells LA Times. “When you’re freezing your ass off at 2,000 feet and have a day or so to summit, you want someone who is humorous.”
This video takes the viewers in a front row seat along some of Matt and Ian’s thrilling jumps as they always embed a GoPro camera anywhere they went. In the middle part of the video, the emotional part starts to crept in as we listen to Matt read his letter to Ian, expressing his true feelings to his climbing and base jumping partner. That said, watching this archival footage of the duo’s many thrilling jumps all over the world will give the audience an idea at how Ian lived his life to the fullest and how he died doing the thing he love the most.Anson Fogel’s “We Were Knights” video compilation of Matt and Ian’s many escapades truly brings out the best way to honor Ian’s memory and the sport he really loved.
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