FREE SOLO: A Rebuttal

 

“I want to punch the FREE SOLO dude” – this was a text from a friend after watching the new documentary from directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi that I strongly recommended.

– Jess Rogers. The Matinee, January 25th, 2019

Hello. My name is Ryan and I was the friend texting Jess Rogers while watching FREE SOLO. We’ll get into my crime of texting while watching DVD’s another day.

It’s absolutely true that I said I wanted to punch Alex Honnold. What I didn’t expect was how much more I would want to punch him as the film went along. That text was sent twenty minutes into the now-Oscar-nominated film’s one hundred minute runtime…and the urge to smack some sense into the protagonist only grew as Honnold’s story unfolded.

So while I don’t disagree with Jess that this film is something to behold, I wanted to take a moment to publicly remove a few of the thorns that this film left in my paw.

“…It takes a certain personality to be able to excel at this particular sport…”

This is…an understatement.

Honnold seems cut from the same sort of cloth as other adventure-seekers like Chris McCandless and Aaron Ralston. White guys (always white guys), who grow up with so much privilege they don’t understand their privilege. Seeing him eschew even modest middle American life to live in a van in the woods struck me as drastic.

He doesn’t have to. He has the means and the network to easily live somewhere reasonable and leave an acceptable carbon footprint. There are plenty of people in the west who have been dealt such a shitty hand that they have to live in their vehicles. What would they make of this young man’s choice? Would they welcome him as a neighbour…or might they regard him as someone eschewing good fortune they would happily accept?

It’s a detail that cannot be overlooked since it has been included in the film. FREE SOLO is as much about the man as it is about the mountain, and what are we really to think of a man who needs to experience nature so thoroughly that he will give up comforts so many would give anything to have?

 

 

“We eventually meet Sanni, a lovely woman Alex has been dating a few months before he really starts focusing on preparing for the El Capitain Free Solo. I sense this is where my friend’s desire to punch him in the nose arose.”

Bingo. Sanni’s role in FREE SOLO borders on heartbreaking.

We are forced to consider a relationship where one person dearly wants to be “enough” for the other, and the answer to whether or not they are – time and again – is “no”. For Alex, intimacy seems disposable.** In the past, he has even responded to partners concern for his life by saying “I’m sure you’ll be fine and find someone else to fuck”. While Sanni has blunted that edge of his personality somewhat, it’s clear that he is still not entirely present.

He can barely contain his contempt while they consider a new home, makes inferences that his struggles preparing for the climb are because she is a distraction, and can’t even offer much of a goodbye when the couple part ways ahead of his big climb.

By the time we are forced to watch Sanni cry in her car after perhaps leaving her partner for the last time, we find ourselves asking “What is wrong with this asshole?”.

As relationships begin, there are sometimes passing thoughts that we can bring something out in our partners – that we can inspire them, fill in a few gaps, help them be “more” – and then become “more” ourselves. Now true – Sanni is a big girl, and she could certainly see what she was getting into whenever she first met Alex. And, the fact that this man is a shitty life partner doesn’t take away from such an inspiring physical feat. However, it’s all there within the runtime of the film. This isn’t like reading that the hero of a dramatic bio-pic was actual a giant jackass in life; this film shows it’s hero acting like a jackass.

What are we to make of this? Why would the filmmakers include these scenes if not to raise questions about the complicated man at the centre of the story?

Must such adventure-seekers live so all-or-nothing? Is it not enough to climb the mountain and take on the monumental risks that come with that; it has to be done without a rope? In an age where athletes are trying to be role models, what should we make of an athlete whose empathy and humanity seem so low?

If you’re looking for an edge of your seat, nail-biting documentary where you might want to swat the main character (or his girlfriend), FREE SOLO is absolutely worth every moment.  Watching the gorgeous scenery and the efforts of an athlete at the top of his game is as thrilling as any Olympic event, Superbowl or whatever sport speaks to you.

This much is true – well, except for swatting the girlfriend.**  That’s all Jess. FREE SOLO is thrilling and hard-boiled, with some of the highest stakes ever caught on film.  All the same though, by including so much of Alex’s character traits in the run-up to the climb, it begs us to weigh the achievement against the achiever. It shouldn’t matter what sort of asshole the only person to free solo El Capitan was (or still is); what should matter is that he is the only person to free solo El Capitan.

And yet – I can’t shake the feeling that it does matter…that this sort of all-or-nothing adventure seeking shouldn’t be glorified, and that’s why his flaws are included in the film.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Jess here!  I disagree that the represent Sanni as not being “enough” for Alex, or that Alex says anything to that effect.  I think they’re saying that to be as amazing an athlete as Alex has become, he’s chosen to forego relationships.  Or chosen to make them less of a priority.  And he doesn’t hide it.  So it doesn’t bother me because he’s very up front about it. 

The only reason swatting Sanni even occurred to me was because I felt she knew what she was in for.  She’s totally legitimate being afraid and worried about her partner, and I’m impressed she doesn’t ask him not to do it.