The documentary was a great success because it showed the audience a challenge without retreat, a challenger who tried to pursue the limit record in a self-enclosed world, and that lonely and rich inner world.
Alex, born in 1985 in California, USA, is a legend in the world rock climbing field.
/kloc-After his father died at the age of 0/9, Alex, who had been engaged in rock climbing for many years, dropped out of the University of California, Berkeley and drove around in his van, looking for all the rocks worth challenging to climb.
The documentary "Freehand Rock Climbing" took two years, with a total duration of 100 minutes. Only the last 13 minutes showed Alex's whole climbing process.
The remaining 87 minutes recorded the process of Alex and the shooting team planning routes, making plans, pre-training, injury treatment and so on.
It took Alex eight years to climb Emirates Rock, but it only took him three hours and 58 minutes to reach the top.
You know, 1958 It took Warren Harding 46 days to reach the top for the first time.
The reason why this documentary is touching is not only Alex's courage to climb 3000 feet (about 900 meters) Emirates Rock with his bare hands, but also the serious consequences after the failure of the challenge, which is also the reason why the audience is most worried.
As you can imagine, a person climbs unprotected on a steep rock wall that is almost smooth and straight, and then returns to the abyss.
However, his hands and feet can only be fastened, stepping on every bump only a few millimeters, and even moving slowly upward between cracks in the rock by friction.
Wind, loose gravel, slippery hands, fear, etc. Any accident or mistake will put Alex in an invincible position.
What kind of person is obsessed with such an adventure?
Each of us will experience big and small challenges in life. For example, when I grow up, the biggest challenge is to take the judicial exam and run a marathon.
The former was once called "the first test in the world", which is famous for its complicated knowledge and extremely low pass rate. The latter is called "extreme endurance sport" because of its long competition distance of 42. 195 km.
So I understand how admirable a person's spirit of hard work is after setting goals.
But unlike Alex's challenge, many kinds of life challenges, at least the consequences of failure are not serious.
If you fail in the exam, you will have to go through another round of devil review next year. The marathon didn't finish, so it's a big deal to come back after a full rest and training.
However, Alex's unarmed climbing challenge is different. He chose free Solo (unprotected climbing).
In other words, Alex will pay the price of his life if he is not careful on the steep and smooth rock 1000 meters high.
He is challenging his life.
Alex has been living alone in the van, living alone and training alone.
Although Alex has various sponsorships and earns a lot of money, he has extremely low requirements for material life and is a vegetarian.
Alex has set up a foundation, which will donate one-third of his income every year to help some extremely poor countries and regions improve the living conditions of the people there.
For Alex, although the sport is extremely dangerous, the risk can be controlled as long as it is carefully prepared.
He said, "There is always something that will give you confidence, sometimes it is a good feeling, and sometimes it is full preparation and training. I have never compromised on what I think is important! "
The doctor once had an MRI scan of Alex's brain, and it was found that the amygdala in his brain stimulated the outside world very slowly.
So Alex is insensitive to all external stimuli that can cause danger, fear and disgust.
This is also the main reason why he can overcome his inner fears and calm down to surpass ordinary people when he challenges the limit.
When Alex succeeded in climbing, he didn't lose control with mixed feelings of sadness, joy and tears.
Even when he called his girlfriend, he said flatly, "The director told me to cry at this time, and the film would be better, but I don't want to cry."
When the director asked him what he wanted to do after he finally succeeded in the challenge, Alex said flatly, "Continue training this afternoon!" "
Alex is surrounded by a shooting team led by Asian director Jimmy Chin and a group of professional rock climbers.
Photographers need to shoot on the steep and smooth rock wall with the same height and difficulty as Alex under the protection of safety ropes.
In the unremitting pursuit of professionalism, they were once full of doubts about the nature and significance of their work.
They don't know whether they are recording a person's perseverance and courage or the last moment of a professional athlete's life.
The conflict between professional requirements and moral feelings in this kind of work torments photographers all the time, and they must prepare for Alex's death at any time in advance.
As far as possible, they chose a corner shooting position that did not hinder Alex's climbing. A member who filmed on the ground, when Alex climbed to the most dangerous position, even dared not look at the camera and turned his head painfully.
Alex's idol and good friend, Tommy Caldwell, who is also a top climber, once climbed the famous "Dawn Wall" for the first time, and a documentary "Dawn Wall" filmed Tommy's groundbreaking work.
But Tommy's challenge was carried out under the protection of a protective rope.
Although Tommy admired Alex's courage to challenge, he told the director that he would not take risks like Alex.
There are some clips in the documentary about Alex's memories of his family background and the problems that Alex's girlfriend Sonny encountered later.
From this, I thought about how important family background plays in the formation of a person's personality.
From Alex's self-report in the film, I know that he has been withdrawn since he was a child.
The father who brought him into the world of rock climbing died at the age of 19, and his mother never made any positive comments on his behavior in his memory.
Alex's mother often says "it's almost impossible", which makes him extremely inferior in character.
Alex said that it is this endless self-loathing mentality that drives him to pursue the ultimate peak of rock climbing.
While holding Tommy's baby, Alex smiled and said to Director Jin, "My family didn't hug me during the critical period of my character formation. At the age of 23, I want to learn to embrace myself. "
His girlfriend Sonny said that Alex still has a long way to go to express his feelings for others.
Alex and his girlfriend Sonny met at the launch of the new book, and Sonny left Alex his phone number.
Sonny and Alex live in a van, but after all, they want a home of their own.
In the film, Alex accompanied Sonny to see the house. When Sonny was happily planning the future home layout, Alex looked blank.
When Sonny laboriously measured various sizes with a ruler, Alex stood by blankly and didn't even know to go over and give his girlfriend a hand.
Sonny was very angry on this trip to find a house.
Alex has been immersed in his own extreme sports world. For him, too close feelings may have an impact on his challenge.
After all, it is a challenge that requires 12 attention and great efforts to be foolproof.
What he did had only two endings: failure and success.
Success only adds another item to his countless records, while failure ends everything and clears it completely.
Alex's relationship with his girlfriend Sonny is also the most controversial part of the film.
Alex, a top climber, has no space except training in his personal world. Therefore, close relatives, lovers and other people have an extremely vague position in his inner world.
Perhaps it can be understood that Alex's girlfriend Sonny is just a link between him and the outside world.
Alex's inner world is a closed and rich world. The misfortunes of his childhood family life created his inner withdrawn character, but in the lonely game of unarmed rock climbing, he found the fun and meaning of life.
In the pursuit of the ultimate road, loneliness is Alex's doomed fate. Natalie Goldberg, an American writer, once said in her best-selling book Write My Heart, which has been published for 30 years, "Everything, once you throw yourself into it, is doomed to be a lonely journey."
The so-called "it's too cold up there" is the truth!
Each of us has our own life peak to climb.
Although the height is different and the difficulty is different, the spirit of never giving up and perseverance represented by Alex is the key factor in the continuous evolution of human history.
It is also a noble character shared by everyone who has worked hard!