English film club Locarno

"Free Solo" (2018)

100 minutes
Directed by Jimmy Chin
Starring: Alex Honnold, Tommy Caldwell

This documentary film is about Alex Honnold’s freakily dangerous free solo attempt in 2017 at El Capitan, the 3,000ft-high rock formation in Yosemite Valley, California. The vertical granite rock formation is a popular objective for rock climbers. Trained in a climbing gym in Sacramento, Alex Honnold, 31, burst onto the international rock climbing scene in 2008 with two high-risk, rope-free ascents — the northwest face of Yosemite’s Half Dome and the Moonlight Buttress in Utah’s Zion National Park. Those free solos astonished the climbing world and set new benchmarks in much the same way that Roger Bannister redefined distance running when he broke the four-minute mile in 1954. For more than a year, Honnold has been training for the climb at locations in the United States, China, Europe, and Morocco. A small circle of friends and fellow climbers who knew about the project had been sworn to secrecy. During the film bits and pieces of his youth and family life are shown. A functional MRI is done on his brain to explain his uncanny ability not to suffer from fear. He lives out of his van and his relationships with his girlfriends are sometimes strained as his life revolves only around his climbing. The route Honnold chose to reach the top of El Capitan, known as Freerider, is one of the most prized big wall climbs in Yosemite. The route has 30 sections—or pitches—and is so difficult that even in the last few years, it was newsworthy when a climber was able to summit using ropes for safety. The true test for Honnold was whether he could maintain his composure alone on a cliff face hundreds or thousands of feet up while executing intricate climbing sequences where positioning a foot slightly too low or high could mean the difference between life and death. Elite climbers have pointed to Honnold’s unique ability to remain calm and analytical in such dangerous situations, a skill that he has slowly developed over the 20 years he has been climbing. The other test was that of the team of filmmakers, led by Jimmy Chin, one of Honnold’s long time climbing partners, and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, to capture the ascent for this National Geographic Documentary Films feature. Drones are not allowed in Yosemite Valley which challenged the film crew to study how to film without influencing or disturbing his climb. The camera people, all experienced mountain climbers themselves, had to carry their own film equipment, food and supplies. They rappelled down the mountain and hung in the wind and cold studying the camera angles and waiting for hours to film the climbing sequences. Free solo tests nearly every aspect of a climber’s physical abilities, and environmental factors, like sun, wind, and the potential for sudden rainstorms, are also factors that Honnold had to carefully calculate. Not only his physical ability but his mental training and his personal life are also key factors in such a feat.