Telluride at Dartmouth Film: "Free Solo"
Follow Alex Honnold’s attempt of the unimaginable: a free climb of Yosemite’s 3,000 ft El Capitan.
When they hook Alex Honnold up to an MRI, they find limited activity in the amygdala, the brain’s emotional center. Needing more than daily life to activate him: he climbs. Already one of the most celebrated rock climbers in history, Honnold sets out on a multi-year journey to do the impossible: “free solo” El Capitan, the legendary 3,000-foot wall in Yosemite. To free solo means climbing without ropes. No rope means that any mistake will be fatal. This vertiginous film, by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, uses an entire arsenal of mountain-film tricks to capture each perilous step. But, as with their award-winning Meru, this is a film about much more than sport. Exploring our capacity for risk, it reveals Honnold’s inner life and the powerful arrival of love into his precarious world. (US, 2018, 97m) Courtesy of National Geographic
