Free Solo, free-hand rock climbing, is this year's Oscar Documentary Film Awards, and also entered the 2019 Shanghai Film Festival. The movie tickets at 9 o'clock in the morning were sold out in minutes! You can see the quality and popularity of this film.
Before watching Free Solo, I was probably not even a rock climbing rookie, let alone experienced the fun and refreshment of rock climbing, so I am grateful for Free Solo. After watching the movie, my palms were really sweaty, nervous, Excited and moved, my mental state is comparable to what I looked like after skydiving before, no exaggeration. As a direct result, I watched this film over and over again and again, and I also brushed Tommy's "Wall of Dawn" and Jimmy's "Climbing Meru" by the way, which is crazy anyway. . .
I have replayed it many times, and I have to say that Free Solo is a good film! The whole film is full of a sense of beauty between man and nature, between man and man, and it has a degree of relaxation and a strong sense of rhythm.
Alex Honnold
Alex, the protagonist of Free Solo, our unprotected rock climbing god, has climbed thousands of times without ropes, but for 8 years, he has dreamed of one day being able to climb El Capitan unprotected.
But dreams are dreams, and Alex is actually calm and transparent. Unprotected rock climbing sounds crazy enough, if you search on Baidu, Alex Honnold, you will find a lot of people are asking, is Alex dead? Is the first person in ropeless climbing still alive? Yes, I think, every day, anyone who cares about Alex or who cares about the sport wakes up in the morning with the question, is he still alive today? But fortunately, under the crazy hobby, Alex will calmly prepare for everything, I think this is the reason why he is still alive. . .
Moreover, when Alex started to love the sport, he was very clear, "whatever happens, it will happen".
When his friend Ueli Steck died unexpectedly in the Himalayas, his girlfriend Sanni was shocked when he heard the news, saying that Ueli and his wife were so good, and now his wife lost him, and Alex said indifferently "What did her expect?" The moment I heard this sentence, I was convinced that Alex was definitely a ruthless man, transparent and sober, he wasn't afraid, and he didn't expect to survive every single time. Yes, my life is here!
In fact, I am a little envious of Alex, because he has no desires! Alex has no need for material life at all. He is very indifferent to food and clothing. He has lived in an RV for 9 years and eats dinner for 88 cents a day. I think his clothes must be casual. After all, even his girlfriend It's about to become something outside the body, and the clothes are not in the care of it.
No desire is just. I have to say that although Alex is 85 years old, his eyes are still very clear and not polluted by social life. And the eyes are big, like a deer. . .
Living in today's anxious and materialistic society, every day, all I hear is that housing prices are expensive, whoever and whoever's wages have risen again and become a social elite, whoever whoever doesn't find a boyfriend will become a leftover woman, really , Seeing the sea of stars in Alex's eyes, I wish I had the courage to close my ears and eyes, calm down, and focus on my own sea of stars.
Alex and Tommy
In Free Solo, there is another rock climbing god, Tommy Caldwell. Alex said Tommy was his idol when he was a child and invited him to help him study how to climb El Capitan.
While watching the movie, I noticed a scene where Alex and Tommy went to experience El Capitan, two people carrying bags, one behind the other, walking towards El Capitan. The steps and postures are exactly the same, the hands are copied into the pockets, the back is slightly hunched, the feet are raised, the steps are raised, the feet are raised, the steps are overlapped, and the steps are very interesting.
Like the pace, Tommy, like Alex, has an affection for El Capitan. This has to talk about another film, "Wall of Dawn", Tommy is the protagonist of the feature documentary "Wall of Dawn". In the beginning, Tommy and his ex-wife were climbing partners, but Tommy was not playing free solo, he was a little more normal than Alex... Tommy was playing normal climbing with ropes, and every time he climbed, he and his ex-wife cooperated with each other. , Rock climbing together. Because of the common hobby of rock climbing, the two of them even bought a house in Yosemite. Unfortunately, his ex-wife later fell in love with someone else, and they divorced. The divorce hit Tommy hard, and Tommy was determined to find the other side of life and climb the Dawn Wall.
The Dawn Wall is a wall of the Emirates Rock. Every morning, when the sun shines on the Emirates Rock, the first place to light up is the Dawn Wall. So the movies "Wall of Dawn" and "Free Solo" both tell the story of climbing El Capitan, but the routes are different. Alex's free-hand climbing route is called the Freerider route, and Tommy's route to climb El Capitan is Dawn Wall.
You can see many routes to climb the Emirates Rock, but no one has ever tried to climb the Emirates Rock through the Dawn Wall
Because the Dawn Wall is composed of smooth granite, before Tommy, none of the climbing gods found a climbing route on the Dawn Wall, so Tommy spent 6 years hanging on the Dawn Wall and exploring the Dawn Wall. , to study the possibility of climbing the Dawn Wall.
In the end, Tommy and his new pal Kevin Jorgeson spent 19 days climbing the Wall of Dawn. Although they are both climbing El Capitan, Tommy and Alex are very different.
1. Climbing style. Tommy's climbing method is obviously different from Alex's Free Solo. Tommy uses a rope climbing method, one-time climbing, starting from the ground, living on the rock wall in the middle, reaching the top of the Emirates Rock, and then going down rock. Tommy's climbing method is called Free-climbing. Bouldering with bare hands will use both hands and feet to climb the natural gaps on the rock. It does not rely on any assistance from the rope, but the rope can play a protective role and ensure safety. And Alex's free solo has no rope protection, only climbing shoes and lime powder. It depends on whether he lives or not.
2. Climbing the route. It took Tommy and his friends 19 days to reach the top of the Emirates Rock. Of course, Tommy's real time was not that long. There were many days waiting for his friends to climb, but there were also more than 10 days. Alex reached the top of the Emirates Rock only for It took more than 2 hours. I think the root cause is that the routes to the top of the Emirates Rock are completely different and the difficulty is different.
On the left is Tommy's Dawn Wall route and on the right Alex's freerider route. The Dawn Wall route is the most difficult of all El Capitan climbing routes. There are a total of 32 pitches. A pitch means the length of a rope. At the end of a pitch, there is a natural platform of rock for rest. place. Therefore, rock climbing is conquered piece by piece. Climbers will use a numerical system to evaluate the difficulty of each climbing pitch. The difficulty starts from 5.0, and when it reaches 5.13, 5.14 or even above, it is a master level. The difficulty of Wall of Dawn is basically above 5.13.
On the other hand, the Freerider route, which is Alex's free solo route, is less difficult than the Dawn Wall. The more difficult sections of the Freerider route are also mentioned in the film: Boulder Problem (5.13A), Teflon Corner (5.12D) at right angles and Monster Offwidth.
However, the difficulty of climbing is objective. If you are a bouldering expert and your fingertips are strong, bouldering may not be so difficult for you, and others may be more difficult for you, so climbing Difficulty is a matter of opinion.
In general, I think Alex and Tommy are both great gods and don't need to be compared. But Tommy has studied El Capitan for 6 years and has climbed it countless times. He created the climbing route of the Dawn Wall by himself. It can be said that he knows El Capitan by heart, which is why Alex invited Tommy to experience it with him. Researching the reasons for the El Capitan, however, an expert on El Capitan, like Tommy, was also very concerned when he heard about Alex's decision.
Let me mention another scene of Free Solo. When interviewing Tommy's attitude towards Alex free solo, there is a ten-second Tommy expression, pursed lips, frowning, and worried feelings are naturally revealed. I want to say that the best actors also play Without this feeling, maybe this is the charm of documentaries, or the charm of Free Solo.
Alex and Sanni
Sanni is Alex's girlfriend. Alex is not an ordinary person, but Sanni is. Sanni may be a passage between Alex and the normal world, connecting Alex and ordinary people's lives, and may also become the fetters of Alex as an ordinary person.
In fact, Alex doesn't need a girlfriend because he already has rock climbing.
"I heard you already have a girlfriend"
“Not yet settled”
"Not yet settled?"
"Look at it again", "She is very supportive of me being myself, but look at it again"
To be honest, if I were Alex's girlfriend, if I heard these words, although Alex couldn't look at it with ordinary people's eyes, I should also be shaken and hesitant. Sanni met Alex at Alex's speech in Seattle. She is not a fan of Alex, but inexplicably went to Alex's speech, asked him to sign his new book, and left a phone call to Alex, and then magically developed a boyfriend and girlfriend relation.
I don't really understand how American girls deal with romantic relationships. I think seeing how Sanni and Alex get along, I have to say that Sanni's love style is actually quite oriental. In the beginning, Sanni supported Alex's rock climbing career, and even climbed with Alex, wanting to know more about and integrate into his boyfriend, and there were also clips to educate Alex, telling Alex how to communicate emotionally and learn to express his love in words, Listening to my girlfriends, these clips are just like the girls around me who are training their straight boyfriends! Of course, Alex and Sanni are also very happy together. In the whole film, I think Alex's cutest scene is when Alex and Sanni are walking in the forest of Yosemite and meet a tree that is crooked. Alex climbs up to play, I God, it's the boy in love, that's right.
Alex even bought a house in Las Vegas to be with Sanni! He has lived in an RV for 9 years and has absolutely no need for material things. They renovated the house and bought a refrigerator together. Sanni complained that Alex didn't help design the decoration. Why did I just feel like a Chinese girl with a sweet and coquettish duplicity.
However, Alex didn't plan to tell Sanni when he first tried to climb El Capitan with his bare hands. He reluctantly admitted it until Sanni asked him the day before. Sanni said that he hoped Alex would think about her before going ropeless climbing, in order to She, for Alex's safety, gave up Free solo, Alex said that I have no obligation to do such a thing, at this moment, Sanni's eyes, love but disappointment, there are countless words, but can't say it again. In love with such a freak, forget it.
When Alex was going to climb El Capitan for the second time later, Sanni drove away a day earlier. For Alex, the favorite thing in his life is rock climbing, not Sanni. So all Sanni can do is give him a hug, turn around, and leave. The look in Sanni's eyes as he drove away was helpless, empty, and worried.
I'm thinking that Sanni may have fallen in love with Alex because of his admiration for cordless rock climbing, but after being together, I hope that Alex will stop doing cordless rock climbing and return to a plain life, contradictory? Struggling? Girls love heroes, but after being together, they hope that heroes will return to ordinary people and become their own support.
The reason why Free Solo is good-looking is because of the beauty in the lens, and because of the real emotions, expressions, and eyes of the characters in the film, which are not the same as those in the performance. And Free Solo's narrative rhythm is very good, loose and loose. When talking about Alex preparing for solo climbing, the rhythm is fast, and the life scene is matched with the content of Alex's climbing notes. What should be paid attention to on each pitch, left How to do the feet, how to do the right foot, where to grab with the hands, in the picture, Alex is cooking, eating, cleaning the RV, training his arm strength, a few shots, orderly telling the life and content of Alex preparing to solo, and so much The content only took 1 minute. On the last day, Alex was going to unprotected rock climbing in the early morning. When he got up, it was a very long shot, getting up, getting dressed, igniting the car, driving, driving on the road, getting off the car, and walking under the Emirates Rock. It took more than 1 minute, and the background music also had a long and calm feeling; in the ten minutes of ropeless climbing, the music changed from the initial confusion and anxiety mixed with bird calls, to the later heaviness, and then to nervousness. , Accompanied by the heavy breathing of Alex, when it came to the bouldering problem, it was already dignified, and the piano was pressed down at a low tone, and the palms of the people watching must be sweaty. When Alex made a kicking action, And when it was successful, a very promising voice came in the background music, and finally took a breath, followed by nervous music, and the heart was lifted again, Alex came to the bevel problem, gasped, nervous. Slowly, as Alex climbed higher and higher, the music gradually changed from heavy and tense to a feeling of hope. The panting became less and lighter, and the music became gentle. People, rock walls, and distant woods, It was easy to blend together. After Alex really reached the top, the music became very loud. The sense of accomplishment, strength, grandeur and the feeling of the finale, finally, let go of my heart, I am really happy. The mountain is so high and the person is very small, but I can hold the entire sea of stars in my heart, just like a year ago, when I jumped down from a small plane and overlooked the whole mountain and water, I was so excited that the world was spinning and my palms were sweating.
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