"Free Solo": review

I like walking, but I'm not the biggest fan of hiking mountain trails. Trekking across long distances while on fairly easy bike paths—that seems to be about my speed. But as much as I love the horizontal, there are people out there with a deep love of the vertical. Alex Honnold is one of those people. With a personality that lies somewhere on the autism spectrum, Honnold is a devoted rock climber who has been seeking progressively more difficult challenges for years—possibly because of an inactive amygdala, something that was discovered during an MRI scan of Honnold's brain, and which means that Honnold requires high levels of stimulation for the amygdala to activate. He literally needs to face great challenges to feel alive so, inevitably, rock climbing became his life.

There's a form of rock climbing called "free climbing," in which a climber goes up a rock face with equipment but without pre-laid ropes. This can be fairly dangerous. But there's an even more difficult form of rock climbing called "free soloing," in which a climber ascends a rock face alone and without any special equipment aside from the clothes on his back, the specially designed climbing shoes on his feet, and the bag of chalk hanging off his belt. Naturally, Alex Honnold loves free-soloing.

I worked construction when I was a teenager, but I had to stop when I discovered I had a thing about heights. It was while I was on the roof of a house on which I had laid the black roofing paper that I realized I didn't like sliding inexorably toward the edge of the roof—and a ten-meter (30-foot) fall—every time I tried hammering nails into the roof to secure the paper. Eventually, I had to tell the foreman—who was a member of our church and who would be seeing me every single Sunday after that day—that I couldn't hack it any longer because I was scared of falling. Scared of heights. That was a shameful day, but also a good one because I learned something about my own limits (as well as the degree to which I can be a pussy).

So for someone like me, physically out of shape and still afraid of heights, watching 2018's Oscar-winning documentary "Free Solo" was like watching a crazy person. I simply cannot relate to Alex Honnold and his aspirations except in the most distant, abstract way. Honnold, having long dreamed of free-soloing the Freerider face of El Capitán in California's Yellowstone National Park, finally did so in June of 2017. The Freerider face is essentially 3,000 feet (917 m) of nearly vertical granite. For much of that distance, a climber can follow one or more cracks to reach the top, but there are moments when it's necessary to shift from one upward track to another, and that transition can be scary even for someone as seemingly fearless as Honnold. One transition in particular, called "The Boulder Problem" by veteran climbers, involves doing either an impossible "double dyno" (leaping from handhold to handhold with both hands—an insane maneuver) or a "karate kick" that allows one's left foot to secure a stable position while one's arms maneuver one's body to "catch up," so to speak, with the extended leg. Alex's choice of how to handle The Boulder Problem is one of the most suspenseful parts of the film.

"Free Solo" was directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Alex's friend Jimmy Chin. Chin's team of cameramen were all veteran climbers themselves, so they all appreciated the danger of free-soloing El Capitán. The team had to figure out how to position themselves along the climbing route so as to get the best shots of Alex as well as to be minimally distracting to him. Alex had already made clear that the presence of cameras would add pressure and stress to his climb, and at one point during the documentary, we see the pressure mount to the point where Alex cancels his attempt that day because it doesn't feel right.

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi isn't present on screen very much; she's mostly behind the cameras. Jimmy Chin, meanwhile, appears quite often, providing commentary and sometimes serving as the audience surrogate, expressing his fear and misgivings about the first-ever attempt to climb El Capitán with no safety equipment. Also featured prominently is Alex's girlfriend Sanni (pronounce it the way the Brits pronounce their slang for sandwich: sarnie/"SAH-nee"), who is also full of misgivings about the climb, and who frequently wonders aloud about Alex's motivation, and what his love of climbing might mean for their relationship. Sanni has some limited climbing experience herself, but whether the documentary intends this or not, she comes off as somewhat incompetent, getting her feet tangled in the coiled climbing ropes, and even telling a confessional story about how she had once failed to pay attention to her belay line while Alex was climbing. She suddenly ran out of rope; Alex slipped and plummeted thirty feet to the ground, severely injuring himself. Sanni comes off as a complex character in this adventure: she's fearful and not always supportive (in one scene, she tells Alex about a horrible dream she had in which he got seriously injured), but in the end, she knows she has to step back and let Alex do his thing or risk killing his climber's spirit. Alex, for his part, tells us viewers that his relationship with Sanni is the healthiest boyfriend/girlfriend relationship he's ever been involved in. It doesn't hurt that Sanni is cute as a button.

It's no spoiler to say that Alex Honnold succeeds in his attempt to free-solo El Capitán: the man has been traveling the world ever since, doing interviews, giving TED Talks, and appearing on all manner of media. His success is due to many different factors: a supportive mom, extensive prep and training (which included a ton of visualization), advice from fellow veteran climbers, and even Mother Nature, who granted Honnold a perfect day on which to make his climb. The ascent took just under four hours; Sanni was asked not to be on site so as not to distract Alex, but she was the first person Alex called when he made it to the top. Her screaming and crying over the phone spoke volumes as she let out a torrent of emotions—fear, relief, gratitude, and pride in her man's achievement.

Some have called Honnold's ascent "the greatest athletic achievement in history." I find that to be a bit over the top. I certainly respect what Alex did, but given the myriad ways in which people can demonstrate athletic prowess, how does one even begin to compare different types of achievement? Think about Michael Jordan or Mike Tyson when they were in their primes: were they not also the greatest in their respective fields? And given the natures of their sports, were they not repeatedly great? Honnold, meanwhile, has free-soloed Freerider exactly once. And another question pops into my head: would Alex's achievement have been any less of an achievement had he done the exact same climb in, say, a hypothetical gym with safety padding to protect him from any fall? (I realize no gym can simulate a 3,000-foot wall, but bear with me.) Does the danger of the climb somehow heighten the athleticism of the climb?

None of this speculation is meant to diminish Alex Honnold's achievement, but these were the questions that came to mind as I watched the documentary and thought about it afterward. Honnold himself, during his TED Talk, talked about how he was trying to be a great climber as opposed to being only a good one, so some big issues were weighing on him, too, like What does it mean to be great? Without a doubt, Honnold's achievement now stands as a sort of challenge to future climbers who will undoubtedly try to beat Honnold's time as they attempt to free-solo El Capitán. May they do so as safely as possible.

The film was beautifully made, with gorgeous cinematography. It was a shame to watch it on a small laptop. The camera angles were as impressive as the vistas that the cameras captured, and I think one or more cameras might have been mounted on drones. With the aforementioned exception of Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, most or all of the film crew made it in front of the camera, including one friend who turned away from his lens when he saw Alex struggling to master The Boulder Problem. With the tension so taut, this cameraman proclaimed that this would be the last time he'd ever be involved with such a shoot. It was an amazing moment.

The documentary's real magic, though, is in conveying just how insanely perilous the climb was. Despite our knowing full well that Alex Honnold survived his ascent (Honnold is remarkably candid about the prospect of possibly dying; his response to death is a shrug), the viewer will find himself unconsciously holding his breath every time Alex has to make a crucial shift in position from one upward track to another. "Free Solo" just won an Oscar, and I'd say the award is well deserved.

Only a few people in history achieve true greatness, and Alex Honnold is easily one of those people. Forgive the mountaineering pun, but he stands at the very pinnacle of his profession, and like all great achievers, he's not happy to remain upon his laurels: he'll be seeking out new challenges soon. Other rock faces and summits are beckoning.