Free Solo

It's simply incredible, what some people can do.

You look up at the mountains sometimes when you're visiting or living in mountainous regions, and wonder how in the hell people climb straight up them?, what drives them to take such risks?, on cliffs so sheer they redefine verticality, many of them climbing without gear, free soloing I believe it's called, totally dependent on their mastery of the elements, completely reliant on their will, and their will alone.

Incredible.

Exceptionally distinct athleticism.

I could never get into it, I was more into reading myself, reading thick books that built your vocabulary and challenged your mind in a different way, laidback reclining or chillin' on the métro, out in a field somewhere in Summer, always ready to pull out some impacting book, before watching films or television later on in the relaxing evening.

It's not even close to being slightly comparable to free soloing, but reading books is a lot like working out, working your mind out, indubitably.

After taking an extended break from Proust for instance, the first time I pick up The Search it's slow going, but if I make sure to read twenty pages, and then read twenty pages again each day for weeks then months I eventually find myself flying through the text, as if I've gone from lifting 80 to 200 pounds.

I hate weightlifting.

I was asked to do it once but after my friend saw the look on my face when he suggested it he never asked again.

But climbing mountains without gear, on rock faces which inspire fear in nimble surefooted mountain goats, death a real and imposing possibility, it's something I can't quite get my head around.

In this technological age, where it seems like web design is becoming the most stunning art form, video games are played by thousands of people forming international teams online, and coding is clearly the most valuable second or third language anyone can learn, I'm serious, public and private schools should be teaching coding starting in grade 1 and then all the way through to University, other countries already understand this and may excel accordingly in decades to come, people are still driven by raw primordial caveperson ingenuity to take nothing but a bit of chalk and some clothing, and mock impossibility with galant courageous alarm.

That's what Alex Honnold does in Free Solo, a documentary that follows him for some time as he prepares to climb Yosemite's El Capitan Wall, which no one has ever free soloed before.

The bravest most elite climbers in the world shiver when contemplating its danger, yet Mr. Honnold approaches like it's just another haughty cliff amongst many.

His partner Sanni is less lighthearted about his chosen career path and their relationship cultivates additional layers which add even more endearing amour to an inherently romantic film.

Blunt though it may be.

I had vertigo just watching from my seat in the theatre, totally blown away by Honnold's superlative athletic endeavours.

How many athletes can say they've done that?

An incredible film incredibly capturing feats that are purely incredible, Free Solo freely excels at reaching unique unparalleled heights.

It's not about asking why? or spending time pondering existence.

It's about action, raw caveperson action.

Like charting the Australian desert (In a Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson).

Intense highly specialized exposure.

Everest

A team assembled, leaders guiding both veterans and new recruits, with goals of ascension, summits, their lives held in trust, clutching the ropes, struggling with shock, slowly and steadily moving one foot forwards, circulatory stamina, keeling, as a storm sets in.

It's sometimes but not often the case that strictly adhering to every rule at all times doesn't encourage smooth workflows in the civilian domain, in work-a-day realms where your life isn't directly threatened, but Baltasar Kormákur's Everest warns that when engaged in high stakes adventuring, adhering to the rules is a best practice at all times.

Years of successfully leading the bold up Mount Everest have left both Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) and Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal) feeling invincible, and although steps are taken to ensure health and safety, crucial factors are ignored, for which they pay a strict penalty.

One heart has grown too big.

Another simply thinks he can do anything.

Everest succeeds as a majestic unpretentious accessible quest, relying on will and determination to motivate its operandi, the rationality of the insurmountable, brashly grappling with its cause.

I was worried that it would unreel like a horror film, the mountain claiming its victims one by one, due to the ways in which it introduced most of its characters, but it isn't like that at all, the storm rather menacing the group as one.

As nature formidably contests, there's a sense of incomparable awe.

A force too omnipresent to dread.

Inspiring images of climate change.

Cinematography by Salvatore Totino.

Tsurugidake: Ten no ki (The Summit: A Chronicle of Stones)

Mountains. Climbin' 'em. Exercising precision in their classification. Work rationalized according to stubborn bureaucratic consistencies. An imperial map in the making.

Japan's military has one more mountain to catalogue before said map can be expertly articulated.

All they need is the right person for the job.

Yoshitaro Shibasaki (Tadanobu Asano) has climbed his fair share of mountains but finds the unconquered Mt. Tsurugidake somewhat intimidating. Pressed by his superiors to perform for posterity he overcomes his initial hesitation, with the aid of volumes delicately cared for by his local librarians, and proceeds unabated. At the risk of offending villagers whose religion forbids challenging Mt. Tsurugidake's treacherous peaks, he finds a local guide (Teruyuki Kagawa as Chojiro Uji) and begins his quest. Together they search for a route to the summit, hoping to outwit the adventurous Alpine Club who has declared they will climb the mountain first, thereby hoping to tarnish the military's reputation.

While Yoshitaro and Chojiro explore using equipment crafted by the ingenuity of the Japanese people, the Alpine Club adopts European technologies.

A number of survey stones must be placed at the top of the peaks which surround Mt. Tsurugidake as well, in order for the military's mapmakers to realize their cartographic ambitions.

Towers must also be built around these stones. Time callously ticks past. A team of courageous individuals is assembled. The snow keeps falling.

Daisaku Kimura's Tsurugidake: Ten no ki (The Summit: A Chronicle of Stones) is an epic tale, modestly crafted according to traditional guidelines. An intransigent macho administration makes shortsighted decisions while a group of bold workers heroically carve new ground. Elsewhere lines are crossed but respect is maintained as openminded resiliency takes into account alternative points of view.

In fact, apart from the military administration, respect permeates every aspect of this film and it was comforting to watch as people didn't get bogged down by petty differences for 139 minutes.

The result is a subjective victory for two tenacious teams who refuse to let the pursuit of an intractable ideal disrupt their herculean achievement.

Sticking together. Trying to find a way. Accepting that the realities structuring certain professions are simply larger than life. And continuing to strive onwards even though survival instincts consistently question the logic of your perseverance.

The creation of this film directly corresponds to the endeavours bravely undertaken internally and externally by its cast, a harmonious collaboration firmly sustained between subject and object.