A madman scales El Capitan in amazing Free Solo

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      A documentary by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. Rated PG

      How nerve-racking is it watching rope-free rock climber Alex Honnold hanging by his fingertips, a kilometre up the sheer granite face of Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan?

      As shown repeatedly in the riveting new documentary Free Solo, his own cameraman—who’s standing on the valley floor with a telephoto lens and, more importantly, is an accomplished climber himself—is too freaked out to watch through the viewfinder.

      Honnold’s crazy free climb up the Earth’s most impressive wall is shot dizzyingly from above, from far below, and—most spectacularly—in closeup, by expert climber-cameramen (with ropes).

      But it’s not just scenes like these, breaking new ground in outdoor shooting, that make Free Solo one of the best in its genre.

      Dazzling footage of the human gecko scrambling up walls from Morocco’s limestone cliffs to Utah’s pink-streaked Moonlight Buttress in preparation for his, frankly, semisuicidal El Capitan bid are just the start here.

      What makes the film so remarkable is that maverick mountaineering directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (who made the Himalayan climbing doc Meru) find just as much transfixing material in the intimate portrait of their flawed hero.

      When we meet Honnold, he is already a rock-climbing star, attending book signings, earning sponsorships, making the cover of National Geographic, and travelling the world.

      However, something is a little off.

      He lives in a van. He eats dinner with the same spatula he fries his mishmash of food up with, straight out of the pan.

      We learn that a lonely childhood and a distant father drew him to solo climbing.

      And most fascinatingly, we watch this lifelong loner try to form a lasting relationship with a woman who may just win the prize for being the most positive, patient, supportive girlfriend on the planet. (“He’s a weird dude and I find it interesting.”)

      This extreme athlete appears to feel no fear, leading one researcher to scan his brain, with even more astounding results in the film.

      Whatever the biology behind it, Honnold is obsessively, inescapably driven to make his record-setting El Capitan free climb—despite all the warnings we hear from pro rock climbers and at least one failed attempt. Adding to the ever-building tension is the fact that the very presence of cameras could throw off Honnold’s concentration and kill him.

      The feeling of stomach-churning vertigo builds relentlessly in the final act, the El Capitan climb as cathartic for Honnold as it is harrowing for us to watch—and, apparently, for his crew to shoot. 

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