Got convinced to watch the movie from my rock-climbing friends. It's a movie about a guy who 'free solos', i.e. climbs mountains by himself without safety ropes or harnesses. It's super dangerous and life threatening, and the focus of the movie is this white guy who wants to conquer the unconquered: free soloing El Capitan, one of the major rock climbing mountains. It's insane: it's a 3200 ft rock climb where if you slip once, you'll 100% die, but this guy wants to risk it all to do it...
Except everything in the movie is meant to make you empathize with everyone else in the movie. He gets a girlfriend, who coincidentally is the cause of one of his major accidents and is present at yet another. He is described by his family as having Asperger's to make him appear 'not normal'. He also gets an MRI to see if his brain is abnormal in any way. He has a film crew following him around, and a couple of rock climbing friends around that ask him 'normal' questions: like, does he ever make notes about people (friends/girlfriend/etc) in his climbing journal (which is what he uses to MEMORIZE THE FUCKING ROUTE SO HE DOESN'T DIE). There's one character who is actually sympathetic, an older guy who free solos as well but doesn't like the whole film crew aspect of the project.
But the part that, upon reflection, informed me the most is his first failure. He bails on his first attempt and then because of changing weather is forced to wait another year. Everyone around him, like the film-maker, is questioning why he bailed at that moment in some footage. At that moment, the protagonist had just sprung the news to his girlfriend the night before (and got to see her be super emotional), had told the film crew that he'd start climbing around 4 AM or so (so they were following him), and was still unsure about a few 'pitches' (i.e. sections of the climb). But it's totally a big mystery. In the off season, he then is brought around by his girlfriend to buy a house and do the whole white picket fence thing (he says that he'd be happy sleeping on the floor, for comedic effect).
The film finally starts to conclude with his second attempt, which is somber as fuck. Like he's preparing for the climb again, but it keeps on cutting away to people crying and talking about death and injury. During the actual climb, again it cuts away to people reacting (one guy spotting on the ground keeps on going "omg I can't watch this"). And he does it. He accomplishes everything he set out to do, but it ends on a bitter note. Afterwards, he does an interview with the crew, asking about what he's going to do next. He talks about perhaps tackling another mountain in the future, and the girlfriend, the one who's been said to be super supportive about this, shoots a death glare into the camera.
The movie shows a grand adventure, but then has the message of "only abnormal, mentally stunted people who don't care about family or friends would truly do adventurous things. And even then, they'd hate for you to continually do it."
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[–] GhostSkin ago
And woman are dream killers