Butler's Cinema Scene

Alex Hannold

“FREE SOLO” My rating: B (Opens Oct. 26 at the Tivoli)

100 minutes | MPAA rating:PG-13

The faint of heart had best pass on “Free Solo,” a mountaineering documentary with so many close calls that the audience spends a good chunk of the running time with their hearts in their throats.

Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s film follows young Alex Honnold, who eschews pitons and ropes and the usual paraphernalia of mountain climbing in favor of his hands and feet.  As a free soloist, he clambers up impossible cliffs with nothing but his own strength and a sort of sixth sense about what cracks and indentations can accommodate his fingers and toes to support his weight.

“Free Solo” follows Honnold over two years as he prepares to be the first to freestyle climb Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan, viewed by mountaineers as “the most impressive wall on earth.” We also learn that the most famous of Honnold’s fellow free soloists have fallen to their deaths…it’s a high-mortality calling.

There’s a good deal of information here about how Honnold approaches this killer challenge.  He has climbed El Capitan dozens of times using ropes  and safety equipment, trying to decide what route he’ll take once he’s on his own.  Frequently he loses his grip and falls. The lines that save him won’t be there on the day of the big climb.

Over time he maps out in his head every nook and cranny of the 2,000-foot tall mountain face, and choreographs his every move, planning what each hand and foot will be doing in a sort of life-or-death choreography.

Along the way the film delves into just what sort of character would risk his life on such a routine basis.

An MRI of Honnold’s head suggests that the fear centers in his brain activate much more slowly than is the norm.

For most of his adult life Honnold has lived a sort of solo existence, sleeping in his van and driving from one mountain range to the next. Looking back, he believes his late father had a high-functioning case of Asperger Syndrome; he cannot recall the word “love” ever having been uttered aloud in his home.

His stunted emotional development is a challenge for his girlfriend of two years, Sanni Mccandleuss, who recognizes that human relationships will always take second place to climbing in Hannold’s world view. Nevertheless, she reports he’s made massive strides in developing his emotional life.

Why does Honnold do it?  To a great extent it’s because he is so sure of his skills that he’s not unduly cowed by a dangerous challenge.  Experience has taught him that the risk inherent in a climb — that he will fall — is relatively low. Of course the consequences if he does fall are extraordinarily high.  Like certain death.

“Anyone can die on any given day,” he shrugs. “I’ve always been a bit of a dark soul…melancholic is the word.”

Later he says that “Nothing good happens in the world by being happy and cozy.”

Along with Honnold and his girlfriend, we see a lot of  Tommy Caldwell, a traditional climber who helps his friend map out an ascent route.

We also meet co-director Jimmy Chin, who positions himself on the mountain and employs stationary cameras, handheld models and drone-mounted ones to capture the spectacular footage. (One of his more interesting innovations…he miked Honnold on his big climb so that we can hear him wheezing from exertion.)

Honnold’s four-hour climb up El Capitan in 2017 is a true nail biter.  One of the cinematographers filming with a telephoto lens from the valley floor finds he cannot even look in his viewfinder, he’s so nervous.

“I’m done,” he swears. “I’m never doing this again.”

| Robert W. Butler\