An excellent day of movies yesterday during TIFF. In addition to Beale Street, I watched Paul Dano's directorial debut, Wildlife, a film about a disintegrating American marriage in the 50's featuring an excellent performance by Carey Mulligan, followed by a lovely low-key Canadian movie about a teenage boy grappling with his sexuality called Giant Little Ones.
The capper of the day was a NGO documentary, Free Solo, centered on this climber named Alex Honnold trying to achieve a frankly INSANE feat of climbing the 3000-feet high El Capitan rock face in Yosemite Park without any gear -- no rope, no carabiners, just a dude in his shoes with pocketful of climbing chalk. It's directed by the team who did Meru a few years back. One of the directors, Jimmy Chin, is himself a renowned climber and a good friend with Honnold, and there is some frank discussion in the film about the ethics of filming someone about to do something so crazy dangerous and how the presence of the film crew on its own might influence the outcome (i.e. almost certain death of its subject). The actual free solo-ing climbing sequence, when it comes, is un-fucking-believable -- awe-inspiring and nerve-wrecking. TIFF had a great idea to screen this movie in the giant IMAX theater in Scotiabank, and watching this on a screen that big in a sold-out showing with the cast and crew in the room was an amazing experience. Both Chin and Honnold stayed on for a Q&A at the end. Honestly one of the best times I've had during the festival in the past 3 years of attending it.
Trailer for Free Solo: [link]
It's generated enough buzz that it'll be getting limited release at the end of the month. See it on the biggest screen possible if you can.