Mark Reviews Movies: FREE SOLO

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 18, 2018

Only one person really knows why Alex Honnold wanted to make the vertical climb up a 3,300-foot path on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park without any safety equipment. The man is Honnold himself, obviously, and like so many adventurous types, he's not one for putting his motives or his rationale into words. The most famous answer for why adventurers do what they do, of course, came from George Mallory. When asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, Mallory reportedly responded with three words: "Because it's there."

There's a need that must be fulfilled within the minds of people like Honnold. It can't be explained by mere words, even if people with that need wanted to. Free Solo, a documentary about Honnold's preparation for and execution of his historic El Capitan climb, offers some significant help to those who have difficulty comprehending this need. It's not because Honnold explains it clearly at any point in the film. It's because we get to watch him go through the process of getting ready to face death, simply so that he can be the first person to do something incredibly dangerous.

This is a surprisingly expansive documentary, considering that it's all about one man and his quest to conquer a single rock formation. To look at Honnold is seemingly to look at a man with simple wants and needs. He lives in a van when we first meet him, and he's perfectly fine with that (He comes across as the kind of guy who's perfectly fine with just about everything). Honnold, who's 31 at the film's start, has been living in that van for nine years, and the only thing about a traditional home that kind of appeals to him is having a shower readily available.

If Honnold owns a dish or a single piece of silverware, we never see it. He eats one meal straight from the skillet in which it was cooked, with the wooden spoon he used to stir it. There's a bed, too, but at one point, while looking to buy a house, he says that he might just sleep on the floor.

Honnold is pretty open about his life to the filmmakers. He started climbing when he was a shy, introverted kid. He had to teach himself how to interact with other people, since his parents were supportive but not particularly open about their emotions. Hugging was a thing he had to teach himself to do in his early 20s.

One might wonder about romantic relationships, and as you might expect, he hasn't had any serious ones. That's almost entirely to do with his profession. Honnold is obsessed with climbing, so he doesn't have much time for typical dating. There's a darker side to it, too: If he doesn't have anything or anyone to live for, it makes the prospect of dying on a climb easier to bear.

Death is very much a reality here and ever-present in Honnold's thinking—even if it's only the recognition and acceptance that he very well might die on a climb. It's fine enough by him, but it's definitely not fine with the people around him. Honnold does have a girlfriend at the film's start in 2016. She's Sanni McCandless, who met Honnold at a book signing, when she gave him her phone number.

Their relationship becomes almost as much of a struggle for Honnold as the prospect of climbing El Capitan. That's not to put the romance in a negative light. It's simply to point out that, while McCandless doesn't want Honnold to die, Honnold never reaches the point that she becomes a reason for him to stop climbing. She doesn't want him to stop, because that would be taking away the thing that drives him. There's a huge difference, though, between climbing—with a rope, a harness, and a helper—and free soloing—with only one's grip, one's stamina, and imperceptible ledges to prevent a person from falling.

Honnold's process of figuring out the path—all of its obstacles, its geography, its various types of rock—is simultaneously fascinating, admirable, and terrifying. There are ledges, even on the sheerest parts of the formation. Directors Jimmy Chin, who becomes a significant figure here, and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi have to zoom in incredibly close to the wall in order for us to see them. Even then, we're looking at something that's not quite the size of a fingertip.

Honnold spends almost an entire year practicing—taking the path with safety equipment, testing the rock's routes, keeping notes in his journal. By the time he's prepared, he doesn't simply have the route memorized. He has every movement of every body part on every motion—right down to what his thumbs will be doing on a particular move—etched in his mind.

He's about as prepared as a person can be for such a perilous task. This story would be involving enough, but what sets the documentary apart from similar true-life tales of adventurous climbing is that the filmmakers maintain focus on the personal side of things. That's not just in regards to Honnold. It's also in seeing McCandless grapple with her boyfriend's single-mindedness on the rock and his emotional distance from her (He is trying to be a good partner, to be fair).

Then there's the participation of the filmmakers themselves, who fear that they might be enough of a distraction for something to go wrong. Honnold has accepted the idea of dying alone (It has happened to free solo climbers in the past and even happens to one climber as Honnold, who seems apathetic the news, is preparing). He doesn't think he could handle dying in front of his friends. The filmmakers have to deal with that, too. One cameraman simply stops watching Honnold as he makes his way up El Capitan.

The climb, obviously, is sheer terror to watch, even knowing that Honnold succeeds. That would, in theory, be the end of this story, but Free Solo offers a final moment that gets to the heart of why it's so successful. Honnold wonders what future climb this one will inspire. It might be someone else who does it, but maybe, it'll be him. That's when the camera captures McCandless' reaction, and her look says it all.

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