The Sharp End (Not really a review)

The Sharp End by Peter Mortimer, Nick Rosen and Sender Films

Brought to by the Creators of First Ascent, Return to Sender, and Co-Creators of King Lines, The Sharp End showcases the climbers who risk everything to do the world's most dangerous and committing climbs. Run-out traditional routes, scary highball boulder problems, ice-covered alpine walls and all-or-nothing free-solo ascents are all part of the game. The Sharp End features Alex Honnold, Dean Potter, Mike Patz, Steph Davis, Tommy Caldwell, Jonny Copp, Lisa Rands and many more.



Cost: 29.95 (includes one year subscription to climbing magazine)

Over the weekend I finally got around to watch the latest movie by Sender Films, The Sharp End. It started out as an objective review, but along the way it became something more personal. I've waited a couple of days trying to decide whether to post it or not but in the end I figured I might as well, thinking that it might at least start some interesting discussion.

The Sharp End is a slick movie that follows a path of hard climbing in the US and Europe. The US section starts in Boulder and then visits Bishop, Yosemite, Castleton Tower and the Diamond. The European section includes the Saxony Towers in the Czech Republic, the Bernese Oberland and Chamonix.

Throughout the entire one hour long movie, think run out R and X rated routes with long and bad fall potential. It will most likely take you out of comfort zone and leave you either hanging on the edge of your seat or asking questions. One example is watching Lisa Rands hit the pads from 30 feet up. You know that it hurt and going back up, took a lot of courage!

A narration cleverly ties all the "sections" together and everything seems to run along at a nice pace with background music. Some of the footage is spellbinding, the most notable that of Alex Honnold climbing a sick looking arête in Saxony. The protection virtual and the potential ground fall not! The air is filled with tension and the filming catches this very well. For me, it is the stand out part of the movie. The other piece was watching Dean Potter back off and start to down climb when he gets into a pickle. Talk about control!

The ethics of the Saxony towers are incredible staunch, including no chalk or metal pro. This is to conserve the rock towers for future generations. Instead of nuts and cams, knotted cords are used with a ring bolt thrown in every 40 feet or so if you're lucky. Often the first piece is 30 or 40 feet off the ground and we are not talking low 5’s here. This area was featured many years ago in a mountain magazine with pictures of Bernt Arnold and Henry Barber climbing barefoot. It was great to see this come to life right out of the pages of the magazine. Henry Barber was one of the first people from the West to climb there and it deeply affected and shaped his ethics going forward.

For the Boulder crew there are many local celebrities including Hank Caylor. A movie about him alone would fill many reels! He pushes very hard on sketchy gear but fully understand that things can and do fuck up from time to time. It’s part of the price of admission. The "Story of Hank" in the extra section is very entertaining.

About half way through the movie it takes a major shift from going up (climbing) to going down (BASE jumping). Chris McNamara, founder of supertopo, describes his own personal journey starting out on his first bridge BASE jumps to flying in a wingsuit at 100 miles an hour. Towards the end of the film the two disciplines start to come together and it now appears that soloing with a 6 pound BASE pack is seen as a viable option for some to allow then to even push harder while soloing.

The invincibility of youth shines throughout the movie and I wonder just how many of them realize how fine the margin of safety can be. Before you say that I'm just an old codger, where the most dangerous thing I do daily, is open up the carton of milk ... I used to solo a lot; alpine, ice and rock until one day climbing a route that I had climbed several times before, I pulled onto a decent stance and it detached from the wall and fell onto a rocky beach 70 feet below. I sustained multiple injuries. Since no one knew where I was and cell phones back then where larger than a brick and cost hundreds of dollars, I had to crawl up a trail for half a mile and drive 20 miles to the nearest hospital. On the drive to town I drove into a bridge abutment for good measure.

I grew up next to the Southern Alps of New Zealand with alpine climbing in my backyard and it dominated my life until my late 30's when I walked away from it. I also stopped guiding which was my livelihood at the time. By then I knew that I was living on borrowed time. I had been dug out of too many avalanches, fallen through snow bridges and gone through several helmets through rock and ice fall. Not to mention, plane and helicopter crashes! I always wondered at the start of the day, did I start with a clean slate or did you carry it over from the day before.

We moved to one of the most isolated cities in the world, where there was no snow and ice, Perth, Australia and I went back to school. I knew that I had to remove the temptation, go cold turkey to make the break and put everything into perspective.

I didn't climb for 4 years but ran instead. I wasn't scared of dying. I just didn't want to leave my wife and family to have to deal with the aftermath. Sure, the old saying of that "at least he died doing something he loved" might have been comforting for some, but it's a pretty hollow statement at the best of times, especially when you have heard it many times.

My time out of climbing was eye opening. People do live fun and engaging lives if they don't climb. People can feel the same about running and other sports. This was a big surprise to me. People can be just as driven to push their personal envelope towards new levels and suffer just like alpine climbing! The difference is that they have a better chance of coming home at night.

Moving to Colorado from Australia changed everything. My wife was offered a job at several hospitals throughout the States and while deciding which place to call home for a few years, I stumbled upon climbingboulder.com while doing web research. The thought of climbing again began to germinate and she accepted an offer to work in Denver. 7 years later we are still here!

The peer group that I grew up and started alpine climbing with has mostly all died now, either while climbing or guiding. The list gets longer every year. Objective danger is something that we can minimize to an extent but never eliminate. When I go home it’s the people that I can't visit that stands out not the ones left behind. They say time heals, but it never goes away.

During the movie Micah Dash stays something to the effect that climbing isn't worth losing your life over... This is something that many people don't fully understand until it’s too late.

Some of the best footage is in the extra section, particular the piece on Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden. I can't think of any reason why this was left out of the movie other that it wasn't extreme enough. He comes over as so "normal and humble" and having a lot of fun at the same time. The section of him climbing the "slab" on the NW face of Half Dome is stellar. Other options include a sanitized version of the narrative, an insight into the making of the film and footage of Adam Ondra climbing a 5.15 sport route. It seems tame after the other footage.

The lunatic fringe, radical, extreme, risky, etc, sells and I can understand why this theme of the movie is the way it is. It's a good movie and definitely worth watching. It’s a powerful insight into the lives of some very talented individuals who push the envelope every day and risk everything.

I'm sure many climbers will want to watch it time and time again, but I for one adding it to my DVD collection. It is a little bit too out there for me. I don’t know how quite to put it into words but it the feeling I got after watching it 3 times (yes, three times) is that somehow life was devalued and if I wasn’t out there hanging everything on the line I wasn’t living.

Like I said at the start, this started out as a review but quickly turned into something else. What it is, I'll let you decide. By the way my favorite climbing movie of all time is still Stone Monkey.

Thanks for taking the time to read my little essay and I look forward to your comments.

Sender Films

Link to trailer

Footnote:
What's up with helmets these days? Are they a thing of the past as well. What's so damn bad about wearing a bash hat? I don't even know I'm wearing it. It has saved my bacon many times.

Thanks John, I almost ordered this the other day after running across the trailer on the internet...sounds like I should have picked it up. Maybe Mama could get it for me for Christmas.

Wow John! That's a lot more profound than any movie review I've read. I think your sentiments are right on. Thanks for taking the time to articulate your thoughts and posting them.

John McNamee wrote:Footnote: What's up with helmets these days? Are they a thing of the past as well. What's so damn bad about wearing a bash hat? I don't even know I'm wearing it. It has saved my bacon many times.

A helmet means you might get hurt and gives you a false sense of security, in a weird way. I have just started to wear mine. I don't care what anyone thinks. It really is the right thing to do.

Great review about the movie John. Even without the Hank thing, the talent captured in this movie is gonna win alot of awards on it's own. Peter and Nick are amazing, FACT!

Thanks for your insights John and sorry you've lost so many friends climbing. Yet you mention Stone Monkey as your favorite climbing movie. Talk about serious risks - Dawes was in that boat as much or more than any of the guys in The Sharp End.

Nothing in life is free - risk is the price of admission.

Thanks for the feedback. I really thought I was going to get flamed big time on this...

Yes, johnny dawes is out there in Stone Monkey but somehow the film protrays the risk in a different manner. Can't quite put it into words...

Very nice review of the movie John. I saw the film at the Reel Rock tour and was similarly amazed at some of the stuff they were doing. It's an enjoyable flick of climbers at the forefront of the sport, doing stuff not many of us can or would do.

Nice personal touch regarding your experiences too, glad you are still alive and climbing.

John,

Thanks so much for your review of 'The Sharp End' and the personal reflection it evoked. We work so hard on these films and when we see that they can stir this kind of thought for people, it is a huge payoff for us over here at Sender Films. It is the ideas, way more than the adrenalized climbing porno element, that is most important to us.

As average, relatively risk-averse climbers ourselves, we did feel a little conflicted putting out a film that could be construed as celebrating danger. So, without stamping a big obvious "don't try this at home" warning label on it, we tried to make the movie not so much about danger itself, but about the folks who were so talented and dedicated that they could explore this "edge", go into the danger zone and experience that heightened state of awareness and come out unscathed, because they were so masterful, so familiar with the contours of risk. And that to us is a really impressive, beautiful thing that any climber can experience if they are being responsible and know what they are getting into and can sack up and stick it. Anyway, not sure if that subtle message came through enough, but it was our objective.

And there are of course exceptions in the film, and we hope that we didn't make the Czech style of drunken tower jumping, or just plain crazy motherfuckers like Hank Caylor -- seem like an example that people should follow (just kidding Hankster -- you're the shit).

Thanks again for watching!

Nick Rosen, Sender Films

John McNamee wrote:Thanks for the feedback. I really thought I was going to get flamed big time on this...

Worst review ever!!!

On the drive to town I drove into a bridge abutment for good measure.

doh! that's gonna leave a mark.

Hank Caylor wrote: A helmet means you might get hurt and gives you a false sense of security, in a weird way. I have just started to wear mine. I don't care what anyone thinks. It really is the right thing to do. Great review about the movie John. Even without the Hank thing, the talent captured in this movie is gonna win alot of awards on it's own. Peter and Nick are amazing, FACT!

DUDE YOUR BACK INSIDE THE BUILDING!!

sean connors wrote: Worst review ever!!!

That's cuz' you're not in the flick.

Hank Caylor wrote: That's cuz' you're not in the flick.

And your point being? I'm one of those under-the-radar types that sends .13x. No big deal, I'll have my day. I'll let you have this one Hank. But all jokes aside, great flick!

I bought The Sharp End because I really enjoyed First Ascent and was hoping for another movie with some great trad climbing in it. I have to say, I was disappointed. As mentioned in the original post, it started off well (Hank's section was great...but too short), but veered way off course when its focus on BASE jumping and spire hopping took hold. For a climbing DVD, this had very little climbing in it. Every two minutes of action had five minutes of talking and philosophizing behind it. How much time did the movie spend discussing the pirate's aid climbing accident (of which there was no footage or pictures, only corny reenactments), or Potter's climb of the Eiger...while the actual footage associated with those two was minimal and from mainly one angle/camera? And no, I'm not looking for another Dosage film that has nothing but V15 sends. This DVD just had too many other things besides climbing going on in it (talking, slacklining, BASE jumping, BASE soloing, more talking about soloing, long rope swings on El Cap - not kidding, Wing Suit jumping...blahblahblah). It sounds like the Tommy/Beth Grand Canyon footage would have fit well in here...I wonder why it wasn't included.

TP in SLC wrote: YOUR GOING TO BE ON THE NEWS!!!DUDE!!.

"TALK ABOUT THE BIGGEST MIND FUCK I COULD EVER IMAGINE"

hanks the shit, no questions

I personlly wasn't impressed w/ it. compared to all the other peter films.. this one was easily not my favorite..it had some rad shit. but just not ...clicking...it seemed...as if he forced it.. While- first ascent, return to sender-.. were much better.

maybe i had too high hopes for it.

My buddies and I always listen to the clip in the Extras of you, Hank, to get pumped up for a climb and get a good laugh in. It puts a smile on our faces and makes us appreciate how exciting life can be.

I thought the film had some great cinematography, and the tower that was used for filming added a great feel to watching the climbers. Almost as if you are floating alongside them.

As with most Sender Films, the stories tie together at the end with a great meaning. I really like how that is done, versus other films that don't have anything deeper behind the climbing.

I love you people!

Great review, John.

Even with the disclaimer, really makes me want to see it.

Have to say that I didn't find Stone Monkey all that super. Was ok, but, I only saw it recently (last year or so) so didn't "take the soup" until much later so maybe it didn't resonate with me due to that. I did really enjoy the Indian Face part of the DVD extras, though. Yikes.

Yeah, helmets. I usually have one that's protecting the inside of my pack (bad about wearing one, especially if its warm out). Should get a lighter, newer one and maybe I'd sport one more often. They are a good idear, but, man I hit my head way more with one on that without. Does something to my spacial relations or some such, maybe.

Again, though, super write up.

-Brian in SLC

"ITS GOING TO BE A YARDSALE!!!"

"cop car cop car fire truck ambulance cop car channel seven news"

my favorites...

I thought this movie kicked ass for it's entertainment value, but John's comments about the invincibility of youth are spot on.

Plenty of climbing IMO, and my palms were sweating most the time. The scene in the Czech Republic is cool....