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Friday, March 01, 2019

'Free Solo' Deserves That Oscar Win

Free Solo is the winner of the “Best Documentary Feature” award at the recently finished 91st Academy Awards.  Three Identical Strangers is still my favorite documentary film of 2018, but Free Solo is indeed incredible and much deserving of its win.  The biographical documentary film chronicles American rock climber Alex Honnold as he prepares and attempts conducting a free solo climb of El Capitan, a 3,000-foot vertical granite rock formation in Yosemite National Park.  If he succeeds, he would be the first one to ever do it.

By the way, a free solo climb, or free soloing or simply soloing, is rock climbing above safe heights without using ropes, harnesses, or any other protective equipment (one iconic movie scene that features free soloing is the rock climbing scene early in Mission: Impossible 2).  Thus, if the climber makes just one tiny mistake, he can likely fall to his death.  And the documentary does stress the fact that several of Alex’s peers did meet their deaths while free soloing.
Look.  I’m afraid of heights.  I can’t help it.  Even when I force myself to look down from a high height – say, from the fourth floor of a mall – my knees would shake.  When I rode a “Viking” ride (technically, in amusement park ride terms, a “pirate ship”) a couple of years ago, my blood pressure spiked.  Heck, even by just watching videos of people going to high heights, a physical reaction of terror is elicited from me.  It doesn’t even matter if it’s within the context of a movie – even if it’s just CGI.  I get affected nonetheless.  With this in mind, you can just imagine how I fared with watching Free Solo, in which footage is real.

It’s also why, while watching this movie, I just had to pause it and (er, SPOILERS, I guess?) Google first if Alex succeeded.  True, this film wouldn’t have been released if it had been otherwise, but still, I preferred to be relieved by a confirmation.  However, even though I became aware that Alex survived and triumphed, watching the act still tensed me up.  My palms became sweaty and my heartbeat went into overdrive from seeing that the only things preventing Alex from plunging to his death are his fingertips and the edges of his shoes.  I squirmed and held my breath many times while watching his climbs.
Actually, the actual, central climb is only covered by the final 20 minutes of its 96-minute runtime.  But its emotional stake is definitely enhanced by the buildup and context provided by its first 76 minutes, which show the meticulous preparation that Alex and the documentary team underwent, the setbacks that he had to deal with, and most importantly, insights about his psyche, personality, worldview, and personal life.

I am against taking unnecessary risks.  And I generally consider hazardous, life-threatening extreme hobbies like free soloing foolish and inconsiderate.  However, the documentary does a great job in making someone like me who has an opposing viewpoint see where Alex is coming from.  Throughout the documentary, there’s some notable emphasis put on establishing what kind of eccentric person he is in order to make the audience understand why he’s making these crazy decisions.  In one segment, it’s even stated that his brain is wired differently compared to us; he’s impervious to the things that typically stimulate most people.
Lastly, on top of all these, the cinematography is stunning.  Watching Alex free solo is not only gripping and breathtaking because of the terrifying, death-defying nature of the climb, but almost equally because of the impeccable showcasing of the grandeur of El Capitan and the various gorgeous views around it.

Overall, Free Solo is quite an amazing documentary film.  The drama, excitement, and visual splendor that it has are comparable to what can be found in notable films of fictional content and superbly rendered CGI.

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