Rent The Alpinist (2021)

Breath-taking, but with added reality check - The Alpinist review by Champ

I find free climbers absolutely fascinating, and loved Free Solo. That movie gave something of an insight as to how the mind can manage risk at that extreme.

This film is equally mind-blowing, with the added twist that the subject, Marc-André Leclerc, is not at all motivated by fame or fortune, and really just wants to climb. But the real difference between this and Free Solo is that Alex Honnold is still alive, but Marc-André Leclerc died on the mountain (ironically, in an avalanche, while climbing with someone i.e. not doing an extreme solo route alone). The section after we learn of Marc's death is naturally downbeat, and utterly brings home the nature of the risk that he accepted.

I love these films because they take most people's assumptions about risk, and what's important when living your life, and turn them completely upside down. And, of course, this film, like Free Solo, looks incredible, showing the awesome mountain environment in all its glory, and how tiny humans are within it

Spectacular - The Alpinist review by MD

Stunning documentary about a free style climber. Climbed alone with no equipment conquering many of worlds most difficult peaks. His climbing style is just unbelievable and the scenery is out of this world.

A spectacular documentary & brilliant partner to Free Solo, despite a lack of depth - The Alpinist review by TB

When Free Solo landed in 2018, not only did it make a star out of its bemused & socially awkward subject Alex Honnold, but it reinvigorated the climbing documentary genre. And it's worth remembering how staggeringly successful Free Solo was: $2 million budget grossing close to $30 million just from cinema receipts and winning the Oscar for best documentary.

The Alpinist is in many ways a sequel/follow-on/spiritual successor (even though it is made by a different team,) but with one amusing and very big difference: as much as Honnold was not a natural protagonist/subject, he was relatively happy for a film crew to follow him along whilst he was climbing, plus was fairly open with whatever the filmmakers wanted him to do (submit to a brain scan in order to see how his mind worked.)

But Marc-Andre Leclerc is the total opposite. The only proper full-length interview they managed to conduct with him was just after he had agreed to star in the film. And even in that it is painfully clear that he is not only extremely uncomfortable in that type of situation, but that the filmmakers almost had to nail his feet to the floor in order to keep him there. Following on from that/the first chunk of filming, he then goes AWOL, vanishing off the grid and making clear that "Whilst it was a cool idea to start with, I'm not that into it now."

And this is both frustrating and noble: Marc-Andre doesn't have a pot to piss in. He doesn't own a phone, a car or any mod cons. He lived for a time in a stairwell on a fold-out sofa. He even has so little money he had to negotiate the taxi fare to the airport, after doing one of these climbs and setting a new world record. But he doesn't care about anything like that and for him it is all about the climbing. So in effect, you get a documentary in the very loosest of senses: a totally fascinating man, who couldn't care less about the film being about him, who will vanish at a moment's notice and leave the film crew in limbo. But there is absolutely a purity in how he lives his life.

There are some very good interviews with seasoned alpinists, his mother, as well as with his girlfriend, who is much more open and unbelievably tolerant of not only the living conditions but also the fact that her boyfriend will casually fly to some of the remotest places in the world and scale enormous mountains with no safety equipment.

Marc-Andre Leclerc absolutely is a fascinating person. It's just sad that in this documentary, we never learn a huge amount about what genuinely made him tick. He kept his cards very close to his chest, and let his achievements do the talking. Which, as many artists would quite rightly say, is in the end all that really matters.