While documentaries are always informative, they aren’t typically exhilarating. This past year featured a slew of interesting, well-made features but none of those was the kind to get your heart racing. The Oscar-nominated Free Solo beautifully showcases the world of rock climbing for the casual movie-going audience and highlighted its foremost star in his attempts to do the seemingly impossible.
This is the chronicle of Alex Honnold’s attempt to “free-climb” Yosemite’s more than 3,000-foot tall El Capitan Wall. That means no rope or safety gear. Just him and the colossal granite slab. While the film’s “plot” is mostly about his preparation and the attempt itself, the more interesting aspects of the doc dive into who Alex is. He is pretty shy and even socially awkward to some degree but he has a good sense of humor and loves nothing more than the freedom associated with unencumbered climbing. That makes things tricky when he starts dating Sanni McCandless. On the surface that would be enough but, as the audience truly begins to grasp the scope of what he does, it begs deeper questions. Why did he decide to do this? Why does he climb at all? Is there an end that doesn’t result in his death? This is a young man who’s been a star in the rock-climbing world for some time but this film is his introduction to the world.
Part of the magic here comes from directors Jimmy Chin and his wife Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. This isn’t the first time they’ve tackled a documentary on climbing and that experience went a long way here. As climbers themselves, there is a certain level of understanding and attention to detail that may have gone overlooked had a less experienced director been at the helm. The result is a beautifully efficient approach to delivering the pertinent details of an incredibly complex and intricate endeavor. Beyond the knowledge, Chin has a close personal relationship with Honnold, as does much of the cast and crew, and that emotional anchor goes a long way in connecting the audience to the experience as partial observes. Nobody wants to see Alex die while attempting to scale El Capitan but the possibility is an undeniable specter looming over the production.
Chin is also a very skilled cinematographer who knows how to capture the majesty of mountainous terrain. Again, this is an era where his wealth of experience paid dividends because presenting this story with the proper sense of scale was vital to its success. Along with Mikey Schaefer and Clair Popkin, an intricate setup of ropes, drones, and remote cameras were used to capture the breathtaking visuals. While the journey was especially dangerous for Alex, the entire filming process was a precarious venture as well. Obviously, high stakes climbing is always going to be something of a niche. However, Chin and company really gave it a grand stage that can be appreciated by a broad spectrum of viewers.
It would be easy for a film such as this to get redundant. After all, there is bound to be a lot of B-roll and plenty of scenic shots that look similar to the untrained eye. This is where a good film editor comes in handy and in this case that was Bob Eisenhardt. When I told people this was a movie about rock climbing, it’s true but also an oversimplification. This is a movie about Alex Honnold climbing the El Capitan so and the insane amount of dedication, drive, will power, and preparation that went along with it. Eisenhardt had to make sure this story flowed in a natural order and, at an hour and 40-minutes, I was basically on the edge of my seat the entire time. I can’t remember the last movie that required the same level of investment and that’s a real testament to how well this movie was put together on both the front and back ends. If that’s not enough, Marco Beltrami provided a tense and emotional original score to really drive it all home.
This movie was really very simple and straightforward but incredibly detailed and well documented. I had heard about Honnold and what he was doing a few years prior to seeing the film but still didn’t know much about rock climbing going in. The more I learned throughout the course of the film, the more frightening it became and the more respect I gained for how insanely difficult a task he set out to achieve. Despite stiff competition as the Academy Awards, this is definitely the must-see documentary of 2018.
Recommendation: I honestly can’t recommend this movie more highly, everyone should see it. It’s a brilliant piece of filmmaking and storytelling regardless of your interest in, or knowledge of, climbing.