It was with some disgruntlement that I went to see the Oscar-winning “Free Solo” this past weekend. Not only is rock climbing not my thing, I had been rooting for “RBG.” I’ll confess that my before-the-fact disapproval was totally off-base. No, I’m not about to take up rock climbing—the thought is horrifying—but this film is, quite simply, a miracle of stunning camerawork that captures unbelievably dangerous and gorgeous shots of Yosemite mixed with an intimate character study of a man obsessed with conquering a mountain without any tools but his hands and feet. That man is Alex Honnold and he is the first person to ever successfully climb Yosemite’s 3,000-foot-high El Capitan wall. What directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, along with their amazing crew of climber/cinematographers, have done is recorded the emotional ups and downs, the meticulous planning and practice, Honnold’s conflict about having his movements documented, and an unexpected love story that unfolds in the two years leading up to the actual climb. And all the while, the fear of death, all too common in free soloing, casts a pall over the entire venture.
Honnold is an odd duck: a loner thoroughly committed to his rock climbing, uninterested in emotional attachments, not a fan of introspection (a brain scan reveals that it takes much more to release the fear mechanism in his brain than it does for most normal people) and a generally self-centered but somehow likeable personality. “Free Solo” takes us through his hours and hours of disciplined training and mapping his route, and ends at his triumphant defeat of the mountain—not to mention death, this time for sure. Even though we know going in that he is victorious, Honnold’s journey elicits audience-wide gasps, mixed in with an “Oh, my God” or two. Warning: Not for those with a fear of heights. Emphatically not for those.
***
War is hell. Is there any doubt? Can there be? But if you need reminding, or if you just want to see the result of groundbreaking computer restoration of hours and hours of black and white WWI footage that honors the centennial of the “war that was to end all wars,” do see “They Shall Not Grow Old.” Brilliant New Zealand director Peter Jackson (“The Hobbit,” “Lord of the Rings”) undertook the task as an homage to his grandfather who served in that war, survived, but was never the same. There were a million British victims of that terrible conflict. We are given a close-up of the troops, many of them not yet 20, training, marching, joking and, of course, dying. Weeks spent in trenches, filth, disease, rats, bayonets attached to rifles, artillery bombs, body parts: It’s all here, and it’s not movie magic, it’s the real thing. The technology has taken 100 hours of severely damaged, century-old film, colorized it for emphasis (and because the war did take place in color), slowed it down or speeded it up, created close-ups of faces and important moments, and all sorts of other technical marvels to give us the immediacy and brutality of war, not to mention the youth that were committed to their country, most of whom would not, as the title says, grow old.
As an added bonus, “They Shall Not Grow Old” begins with Jackson (who looks like a hobbit—plump, bearded, friendly, with wide, shoeless feet) talking to us, letting us know a little about what we’re about to see and inviting us to stay afterward for a half-hour presentation of some of the techniques used to make the film. I stayed and was rewarded with insights and wonder at the hard work that goes into a masterpiece.
