Free? One-man movie: A successful person must be the one who died with himself.

To my dear son, a struggling high school student:

Free single-person viewing: success must be the person who died with himself.

The winner of the 20 19 Oscar documentary released at the end of February was the documentary Solo Free edited by a couple of China directors. They tracked and filmed the climber Alex Honnold, and after two years of careful preparation, they finally succeeded in climbing Captain El, who is 3,000 feet (900 meters) high in Yosemite. After reading it, except for the sweat on my hands, there is only a sigh: success often belongs to those who perish together with themselves.

I pay attention to this movie mainly because I am a fan of Chinese American director Jimmy Chin (Jimmy Chin). A few years ago, I watched his mountaineering documentary "Meru (Climbing Meru Peak)" filmed on 20 15, and was instantly surrounded by his dark face, white teeth, and the burly figure that is rare among men in China. At that time, after watching the movie, I was very excited to write down the movie-watching notes "whether to spend 600 thousand to climb Mount Everest or climb Mount Meru by myself" After watching Free Solo today, I still have the urge to write some thoughts.

Jimmy Chin graduated from carleton college, the top five college of arts and sciences in the United States, and became a master of Asian cultural studies. However, he fell in love with mountain climbing when he was in college. After leaving the campus, he did not become a lawyer, doctor, code farmer or pianist as expected by his parents, but eventually became the leader of extreme mountaineering. He lived in a van for eight years and traveled to different peaks in the world. As a member of the American ski team, he skied down Mount Everest for the first time, setting a record. There are countless other summit stories. Take Mount Meru as an example. Jimmy and two top experts spent 1 1 day challenging and conquering the nearly vertical peak "shark's fin" on the Himalayas. This is also a pioneering conquest of mountaineering for decades, and no one can copy it so far. 1996 Jon kolekall, a survivor of the Everest disaster, said, "Compared with climbing Mount Meru, climbing Mount Everest is like walking in the Woods." From this sentence, you can understand how steep Mount Meru is! Jimmy didn't waste the genius of his famous school, the high pilot. He stumbled upon the charm of photography in extreme sports and combined them perfectly. In the end, he became a famous photographer of National Geographic magazine, an exclusive sponsored photographer of North Face, and an extreme film director, achieving a perfect win-win situation in personal interests, career and life. His social account has more than 10 million fans. More romantically, in the process of making Meiru, he met Ms. Chai, a beautiful mixed-race woman, and a beautiful female directors who graduated from the Department of Comparative Literature of Princeton University. It was with her help that Meru edited a feeling different from other extreme sports movies, which was not only inspiring, shocking, but also warm, thus winning many awards, including the shortlist of Oscar for Best Documentary, and taking their directorial career to a new height.

Now the couple have spent two years filming Free Solo with the famous climber Alex. Why don't everyone get excited and have a look?

This two-hour movie, except for the last 10 minute, shows the whole process of Alex successfully climbing the 900-meter-high Sheikh Peak with his bare hands in June 20 17. Everything else is a detailed presentation of the training and preparation for this climb in the first two years, including the operation of the photography team, including the life of Alex and his new girlfriend Sanni living in the van.

Director Jimmy Chin is an atypical post-80s generation, while Alex, the protagonist and climber of Free Solo, is an atypical post-80s generation. Alex was born in 1985. He used to be an engineering student at the University of California, Berkeley. He fell in love with rock climbing under the influence of his father from the age of five. He was introverted and shy by nature, so he chose to climb alone because he didn't know how to communicate with others. /kloc-After his father died at the age of 0/9, he dropped out of school and drove the van at home. From then on, he began a "desperate struggle" with rocks all over the world.

Do you think this climbing with bare hands is purely reckless under hormonal impulse? No, in fact, if you know it carefully, you will find that rock climbing is no different from other sports, but it is a sport that challenges the limits more. As an "athlete", besides boring training, life is boring planning, detailed action plan, route selection, foothold and landing point planning, and thousands of exercises and recitations. As a movie lover, I think the whole two-year preparation process of climbing the Emirates Peak, including the filming around it, is a classic case of project management. Target setting, time arrangement, planning of each landing point, design of each route, environmental survey around milestones on each route, prevention of each risk, reservation of food and water on the way, deployment and setting of camera position, handling of emergencies, psychological and physical construction of climbers and photographers, etc., all have clear plans, so it can almost be said that risks are under control as much as possible, rather than.

Chai mentioned in the interview that Jimmy and Alex are good friends in mountaineering and have enough mutual trust; Chai's concern for truth and humanity, as well as the thinking of non-commercial film and television production, also made Alex choose Jimmy and his wife as follow-up directors when his reputation was prominent, his climbing plan was in full view and the media was overwhelming. Jimmy also selected and set up a professional mountaineer photography team (claiming to be the team with the strongest photography skills among climbers and the best mountaineering skills in the film and television circle, haha), and formulated three rules. All shooting is based on non-interference, not making any decisions and action plans that may affect Alex's life safety. During the whole two years of filming, they accompanied Alex to do enough rope drills, and recorded and planned every possible place, which cave was inhabited by a nest of birds and which cave was inhabited by three bats. Because in highly concentrated freehand rock climbing, even if a bird jumps from the air or a lens cover falls off, it may cause the climber to fall and fall under the impact. It is self-evident that falling at a height of 900 meters means something. There is no need to be afraid or shy away. Alex said in the camera, "I don't need to conquer fear, I just need to let myself go beyond fear and expand my comfort zone infinitely." The expansion of this comfort zone comes from day-to-day practice. When Alex finally decided to climb rock wirelessly, he actually had a plan.

Alex wrote a book about his rock climbing life called Alone on the Wall. I haven't seen it. According to the readers who have seen it, the first three chapters are detailed descriptions of various climbing equipment, terms and data, which makes people feel great. In short, you don't need to know that the difficulty coefficient of climbing Emirates Peak is above 7c+, just remember that it is 900 meters high, and there are only a few protrusions and naturally weathered cracks, with a thickness of 1cm. It is the most difficult granite to climb in the world at present, and its cordless climbing is equivalent to landing on the moon! Then why do you have to conquer it without any rope protection measures and turn this activity into a game of "just like the Olympic Games, win the gold perfectly or die"? This question can only be asked by God.

What is the meaning of being born as a human being? Why do people challenge the limits? Everyone has different answers to this question. But in any case, you can only admire such people who dare to challenge themselves and die with themselves. Often fail and die, and the probability of death is not great, because you are destined to concentrate and go all out! The so-called death and afterlife.

After death, you can reach the finish line without regret!

After watching the movie, I breathed a sigh of relief and began to recall those people who also died in history. Van Gogh, down and out, died in oil painting, creating the burning of Sunflower and the touching soul of Starry Sky. Leonardo da vinci, who is obsessed with art, science and engineering, still has many puzzles in his manuscripts that the scientific community has not thought about. Hawking, who was confined to a wheelchair for life, used his brain to soar in the sky and collided with the universe, leaving a "short"? The answer to the big question is such a fascinating work. Steve Jobs and Allen Musk may be love rat's fathers, misers and misers in his life, but their obsession with perfect products created Apple, Tesla and Space X. .

During the winter vacation, my family went to Butterfly Valley in Puerto Rico one day to play "human body rafting". It took a long time to go down the mountain, because I had to rush back to another fluorescent beach boating activity at night. The tour guide specially took us a shortcut that we don't usually take, which made me experience rock climbing for the first time in my life. Climb the narrow mountain road with both hands and feet, and when you reach the cliff, you know there is no way out. At that time, I stepped on a boulder at an altitude of 100 meters, with a stream abyss at my feet and rugged rocks at my feet. I need to climb the stone by myself, but fortunately, the guide still has a rope in his hand. At that moment, I had to bite my bullet and fight. I actually climbed over the rocks quite skillfully and finally landed safely. If I had watched "Free Solo", I would have remembered the lyrics of the song "Gravity" written and sung by Grammy winner tim mcgraw for this film:

Look what you overcame to get here.

Look what you've conquered

Look how far you have run.

Look how far you have run.

The doubts you pressed down

All doubts were left behind.

Afraid of being submerged

Struggling to jump out of all fear.

When they say they can't do it, they say you can't do it.

In your mind, in your heart, in your hands.

In your mind, in your heart, in your hands.

In your mind, in your heart, in your hands.

In your mind, in your heart, in your hands.

Gravity is a fragile thing.

Gravity is fragile.

Everything you leave in your throat

Swallow everything you want to say.

All the dreams are open.

Unlock all the dreams you want.

Now you can finally see them.

You will eventually see

They pick you up at your destination.

They are waiting at the finish line.

Now that you have come so far.

Tell yourself you did it.

Isn't it? When you feel too tired to struggle and don't know where the road ahead is, think about these dead people. As a film critic on Douban said: "Finally, it's our turn to clear the fog, rush out of the predicament and embark on an incredible journey. If you don't accumulate steps, you will be thousands of miles away. "