I went into Stormbound expecting to see incredible footage of Mother Nature’s power, captured over a career spent storm chasing for Jeff Gammons. What I wasn’t expecting was the intense personal story of Jeff and his wife and storm chasing partner, Sara Gammons. After a week of going from one wild genre swing to another, I figured a documentary about wild weather would offer a nice comedown to close out this year’s SXSW. The great thing about expectations is that they come ready to be upended.
For Jeff, Stormbound represents a lifetime of chasing the impossible. Given a prognosis of six months at birth, living on the edge is all Jeff has ever known. While Stormbound provides an overview of Jeff’s life, the main thrust of the film starts in 2023 when he finds out that he’s going to need a kidney transplant, which will be his second. Along for the ride, literally and figuratively, is Jeff’s wife Sara. Sara is the co-star of the documentary, but she’s really the heart of the whole endeavor. Her presence elevates Jeff’s story from an incredible tale of survival against the longest of odds to a story about the power of love. I know that sounds hokey, but that’s really the only way to put it.
As the search for a kidney takes place, Stormbound covers what could potentially be Jeff’s last season of storm chasing. It’s a passion Jeff has held since he was a child, charting the course of Hurricane Andrew. I remember seeing news reports on Hurricane Andrew as a child, and in that moment I felt an immediate kinship with Jeff. But Jeff took his fascination with the weather, extreme weather events specifically, and ran with it. Stormbound has plenty of Jeff’s personal footage from various storm chases over the years. One of the film’s key parts is the section on Hurricane Katrina, of which Jeff was able to get footage from the storm’s landfall in Mississippi. Katrina footage will always be overwhelming, and that’s true here. Rising waters, unfathomable winds, and wide scale destruction…it’s one of many reminders throughout the film that we are always at the mercy of Mother Nature. While he was getting this first-hand footage, Jeff was also going through dialysis. In one of Stormbound’s more harrowing moments we watch as someone wades through chest-deep water to save his car and retrieve Jeff’s medicine.
That sort of selflessness mixed with fierce determination connects this 20 year old footage with Jeff’s life in the present with Sara. The storm footage they capture on their chases together is spectacular, but what the film captures in their relationship is staggering. As Jeff waits for a donor to come through Sara gets herself tested to see if she’s a match (which she is), then donates her own kidney to keep Jeff chasing. Anyone that donates a kidney (or whatever they can) has a bit of saintliness to them, but it’s humbling to witness someone do something like that. No matter their size, acts of compassion and empathy tend to have that effect on me. It’s one of the things that keeps me sane. The more time we spend with Jeff and Sara, the more their personal moments surprised the impact of the storm footage.
Stormbound is a story about relationships. Between man and nature, man and himself, man and his family, man and wife, filmmaker and film viewer. It goes back to the immortal, often invoked, Elbert-ism about movies being empathy machines. When a film brings us closer, in any way, to our humanity and that of others, it’s a wondrous thing. I walked into Stormbound expecting an adrenaline rush of storm footage, but ended up being blown away from the people more than the weather.
