Member review

“Free Solo” (2018), directed by Jimmy Chin is a moving documentary about Alex Honnold, a free soloing climber and how he takes on his biggest challenge yet, climbing the infamous El Capitan. We join Alex as he begins to prepare for his momentous assent. Through the eyes of his girlfriend Sanni and trainer Tommy Caldwell, we see how Alex must overcome injury and failure to reach his end goal. This documentary clearly demonstrates how you must be resilient to achieve your dreams and motivates you to overcome your fears.

The work that Jimmy Chin does on “Free Solo” is similar to his work on Meru (2015). He uses the conventions of a documentary to create an engaging and flowing movie. By using personal interviews and dramatic shots on both films, Chin relates the extreme to everyday life.

The cinematic score for this movie helps to create suspense and keep the audience hooked to what can be a slightly boring genre. Marco Beltrami and Brandon Roberts compose excellent songs such as “Freerider” and “Huge Stones” to create dramatic suspense and increase the impact of the stunt on the audience.

This documentary clearly has a different objective from many other films in the same genre. For example, Free Solo aims to educate the reader on the struggles and success of a person's life, making it easier to relax and enjoy the movie. On the other hand, a documentary like “Super Size Me'' aims to change your mind about a certain topic through a bombardment of statistics and visual graphics. This forces the viewer to pay attention but can also lead to a stressful viewing.

Overall, I really enjoyed watching “Free Solo” as it offered a great insight into an area of life that I knew little about. It helped me understand that I must keep trying to reach my dreams and make them happen. I would recommend this film to anyone that wants to stray away from watching their typical movie genres and want to try something new. I think this movie is a must see and is fantastic!!