The Alpinist: Film Review

Director: Peter Mortimer, Nick Rosen

Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen's climbing documentary has everything you'd expect following on from the award-winning Free Solo.

Vertiginous vistas, edge of the seat moments and a sense of scale - The Alpinist never once holds back from taking you right into the action and allowing you the chance to see what it's like to be a free climber.

But aside from what you'd expect from a slickly produced documentary, what The Alpinist also has going for it is its protagonist climber Marc-André Leclerc.

With his big Kevin Keegan type hair, goofy grin and desire to shy away from media attention, Leclerc is an enigma that the camera - and consequently the viewers - engage in.from the get go. 

Leclerc is one of the top free climbers in the world, whose solo ascents cause much admiration from within the summiting community and whose escapades leave non-climbers with their jaw on the floor as they watch nimble hands and feet trying to find the smallest of crevices to cling on to.

It's this second side of things which Mortimer and Rosen tap into, giving early commentary moments to the climbers who know him and then letting the seemingly shy Leclerc tell parts of his own story. From initial shots of him bouncing on a trampoline in the hippy vibes of northern Canada to scenes of him trying to climb ice hanging off the side of a mountain, The Alpinist does much to build an engagement with Leclerc throughout.

While it's not always entirely successful (some of the more personal history elements of Leclerc are a little wanting), the doco's commitment to the exploration of what drives a climber is extremely admirable and engaging.

As the film gives way to a mystery, the story takes twists and turns that are both gripping and compelling - and equally never exploited as part of a slickly polished package that knows its strength lies in its visuals, and its use of wide shots to convey the awe of what Leclerc is doing.

Mortimer and Rosen wisely eschew a desire to provide a gallery of talking heads, instead opting for a more intimate feel to the doco and a smarter crafting of the jigsaw that is Marc-André Leclerc. It's in the film's final 15 minutes that you realise how invested you've become in this man who shunned the media for his exploits and followed the dreams of altitude for his own gain.

As a doco, The Alpinist is fairly formulaic, doing what you'd expect of a climbing movie - but it's in the more emotional edges than the film somehow manages to soar as high in your consciousness as Leclerc does on the mountains.