Mark Reviews Movies: THE ALPINIST

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 9, 2021

Only those who climb rock formations really know the name Marc-André Leclerc—until the release of this film, of course. When the filmmakers of The Alpinist finally approached the climber, he had been practicing his sport/craft/art since childhood. Although some mountain climbers make the covers of magazines and gain a lot of followers on social media, the Leclerc we encounter here prefers to keep his accomplishments mostly quiet, even though they are achievements that give even veteran and current star climbers pause. If Leclerc wanted to be as famous as, say, Alex Honnold, who is interviewed here and rose to stardom on account of a documentary about one of his historic climbs, the young Canadian wouldn't have had to do much.

Highlighting Leclerc and his seemingly preternatural climbing abilities is obviously the main goal of directors Peter Mortimer, who also serves as the film's narrator, and Nick Rosen. The two filmmakers know enough about climbing—having attended college in Colorado, participated in some climbs, and had a career of making documentary projects about the sport—to know when a climber is pushing the sport beyond the limits others believed to exist.

That's the kind of climber they know Leclerc to be, when Mortimer reads a post online about the 20-something man conquering a particularly noteworthy peak. He did so alone and without any safety equipment. Mortimer needs to meet this young man, who has somehow gone under the radar within the wider world of sports and, to some degree, even within the fairly limited world of other mountain climbers.

That's what most of the film covers: the search for and the constant trailing of Leclerc, as he keeps pushing the limits of alpinism—the idea of climbing tall and complex mountains as quickly and with as little equipment as possible. The filmmakers have to keep hunting down Leclerc, as the climber travels the world and makes climbs—the sort of which few would think of and even fewer would actually consider attempting.

They should have expected it, given the only face-to-face conversation Mortimer has with the climber. Then again, who would give up the chance to be the star of a movie, with the only stipulation being that you have to keep doing what you love, exactly as you have been doing it for most of your life?

The answer, as it turns out, is Leclerc, who proves himself to be that rarest of sportsmen, craftsmen, and/or artists throughout most of this film. The climber tells the film crew that he has little to no interest in being famous. They have to find him as just another member of a community of climbers, living a modest life in the woods outside a town in British Columbia. As the first and, really, only interview with Leclerc is about to end, Mortimer notes that the climber earned the attention of a corporate sponsor. More pointedly, the director notices that Leclerc becomes increasingly, visibly uncomfortable as he poses for a photo shoot.

This puts the filmmakers in a difficult but fascinating predicament. The subject of their film disappears for stretches of time. They bought Leclerc a phone, so that he could let the filmmaking team know where he is, what he's planning, and when a climb is going to happen, but he doesn't answer. An information trail of photos and videos online—from Leclerc, his girlfriend Brette Harrington, and other climbers whom he or the couple come across on their adventures—emerges, and when the directors find out what Leclerc's next climb is, they discover it can only be labeled as what his previous climb was.

This had to be frustrating for Mortimer and Rosen, who clearly were hoping to get exclusive footage of Leclerc climbing imposing mountains in ways that even his forebears and contemporaries find to be impressive—and a bit reckless, too. To be fair, they get a good amount of that footage—dizzying and terrifying sequences of Leclerc gracefully ascending a narrow crack, hanging from rock and ice and snow that occasionally falls while he's testing his next move, and grabbing for seemingly invisible ledges or handholds along the face of some peak. The only comfort of these scenes, perhaps, is that we know Leclerc has climbed these places before.

When the film crew isn't present (as becomes more the norm as the story unfolds), though, they have to hire an outside cameraperson, in whatever part of the world Leclerc happened to decide upon, or, in the case of his climactic free solo climb of Torre Egger in Patagonia, track the climber's path with a computer-generated model. In terms of learning about the man himself, Harington and Leclerc's mother fill in some personal and biographical details, and other climbers, such as Honnold and Reinhold Messner (who, among his assorted accomplishments, was the first to conquer Mount Everest without an oxygen tank), explain what makes Leclerc so extraordinary as a climber.

What's fascinating—and what becomes particularly affecting during the epilogue, which does feel a bit too much like, at worst, manipulative cheating or, at best, a calculated omission on the part of the filmmakers—is Leclerc's regular absence in this film. It defines him, while also confirming everything he says about himself and others say about him. The Alpinist may have set out to capture the thrill of climbing, but in the process, the filmmakers show us a real deal in the sport—and the actual reality of it, too.

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