I’ve posted about Parkour luminary David Belle before. He’s back for more action in Banlieue 13: Ultimatum. Twitch has the trailer. The stunt work is incredible, and man, can that last shot be real? I’ve seen Belle jump between buildings before (again, see old posts), but that looks impossible.

(One of my favorite scenes from Banlieue 13 was where Belle somehow shoots feet first through the tiniest of windows above a door. Ah, here it is. At around 0:23 of this video.)

Straight to the Bar linked up a good David Lang Parkour training video. That led me to check out Mr. Lang's YouTube favorites page, which is a gold mine of good videos. I could waste far too much time poking around those. I did catch this best of David Belle compilation, which includes some great stuff I hadn't seen before. The monkeybar work around 2:30 is terrific. I also checked out zesyo's training videos, which are also very good (particularly the first one).

The New Yorker is running a piece on Parkour titled No Obstacles. I only skimmed the first page, as I'll read it full when my print edition arrives, but this paragraph leapt out at me:

The video of Belle that traceurs seem to find most compelling, judging from how often they mention it, is one in which he crashes into a cement wall. I have found it on YouTube, using "David Belle fall" as the search term. Belle is attempting to leap over a double-wide ramp that leads to an underground parking garage. The ramp is enclosed by cinder-block walls, about three feet high. Belle arrives at a run from the left. He lowers his hands but they appear to miss the first wall entirely; he seems to be looking at where he means to land. Incredibly, while aloft, he turns, so that his shoulder, not his head, strikes the opposite wall. Ten feet beneath him, at the bottom of the ramp, a cameraman is lying on his back in order to shoot from below. Belle manages not to land on him. His first gesture is to see if the cameraman is all right. Then he begins walking briskly up the ramp. Toward the top, he turns and can be seen to be grinning.

I hadn't seen that video, so did a quick search and found it easily. Then I went back and watched this popular video of Belle. It's much harder to watch without cringing now, as you really appreciate how death-defying the building-to-building leaps are. A similar slip—a slip I now know he has in him—at those heights... Shudder.

Anyway, happier thoughts: I really like this commerical and this one.

This insane David Belle/Parkour video (WMV 4.7MB, hosted by this fellow) crossed my aggregator this morning. You have to get a bit into it for the death-defying stuff. A quick Googling of "Parkour" turns up a ton, including parkour.com, Le Parkour, and Urban Freeflow. All provide links to a pile of videos. Post if you find any that are particularly cool. I like the Nike "Angry Chicken" commercial (WMV 1.2MB, found here).