NOVEMBER 5, 2018
OK, I’ll admit it. Over the past few years, I’ve developed a deep-set fear of heights. I mean a shrinking-of-your-nether-regions fear of heights.
So when “Free Solo,” a documentary about the first person to climb Yosemite’s famed sheer cliff without any rope to break a fall, opened, several friends mentioned that it’s a movie which I should avoid at all costs.
Which meant, of course, that I had to see it. And, despite several some nether-region shrinkage at times, I’m very glad that I did.
Particularly since the film allowed me to get to know Alex Honnold, one of the country’s most famous rock climbers and likely the world’s preeminent proponent of a specialty called “free soloing,” in which the climber has no safety protections whatsoever. If a climber’s foot slips or his hand gives away, he will plummet thousands of feet to his death. There is no room for error, which is why it likely appealed to Alex.
Having grown up in a household where there was no physical signs of affection — he had to teach himself how to hug much later in life — the 5 year-old Alex gravitated to the solo sport of rock climbing and later dropped out of college to pursue his passion full time.
When Alex decided to incorporate free soloing into his climbing skill-set, there were quite a large number of free solo climbers who were more renowned in the world of climbing, and the film suggests that they have all been killed in falls, with Alex now assuming the mantle of the world’s most preeminent solo climber. Given the death toll of expert climbers in the sport, it would be understandable if Alex would be cautious about his next free solo climb. Instead, he ran toward what is considered to be the Mt. Everest for free solo climbers — the sheer face of Yosemite’s El Capitan (pictured above).
Although El Cap has been successfully conquered by climbers using safety ropes, a free soloist has never made it to the top, and Alex was determined to be the first. Directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin take the time to show us all of the research that Alex puts into mapping his intended route to the top. Time after time we see Alex ascend to the top of El Capitan (using ropes) and chronicling every hand-hold and every foot-crack in his overflowing notebook.
With death a possibility with every movement upward, it’s a good thing that Alex doesn’t have any distractions to divert his attention.
Oh, wait.
New distraction #1 — A romantic relationship has suddenly blossomed between Alex and a remarkably patient young woman Sanni McCandless, who has agreed to live with Alex in his bathroom-less trailer. (How patient is that?) More importantly, she has to live with the fear that when the man she loves heads out to free solo, there’s a chance that he may never come back. And Alex must now know that he’s not climbing just for himself any more.
New distraction #2 — The camera crew. Chin is one of the most accomplished directors of rock climbing films with a camera crew who are all climbers themselves. Yet all it takes is a unexpected and unintentional camera move by a crew member to distract Alex long enough to cause him to miss a hand-hold that results in a fatal fall. Chin is very aware of the responsibility of his crew not to distract Alex, and although no one wants to film him falling to his death, the possibility is real that it could happen.
Finally Alex, without a rope or safety equipment, takes his first upward step to the top of El Capitan.
And we, as an audience, hold our breath.
Among popular documentaries this year, “RBG,” “Tea With the Dames” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” are celebrity-driven docs that answer the question “Who?” Other docs, such as the plot-driven film “Three Identical Strangers” which unravels a mystery and answers the question “What?”
“Free Solo” is one of those docs which answers the question “How?” How exactly did Alex try to pull off this remarkable feat? And “Free Solo” more than answers that. Then it finally moves to unravel the biggest mystery of all:
“Why?”
GRADE: B+
