Progression

By BIG UP PRODUCTIONS
Available at City Rock
Review by Tony Lourens

This is a movie that digs deeper than most. It shows dedication, frustration, despair and elation. It truly showcases the best in world climbing: The inimitable Chris Sharma performing the ‘impossible’ on his ‘home’ crags in Spain and mind-blowing footage of his first ascent of Jumbo Love (9b) on Clark Mountain in Nevada (which I immediately rewound and watched again); Patxi Usobiaga demonstrating the incredible mind power of relentless training and competition climbing, Tommy Caldwell showing why he is the king of El Cap free climbing and, of course, the magician himself, Adam Ondra.

There are many impressive climbing feats in this movie, such as Alex Honold soloing some of the harder gritstone problems in the Peak and Kevin Jorgeson doing high ball problems in Bishop, but Tommy Caldwell working the free lines on El Cap is simply inspirational. The moves he pulls! are just outrageously hard and thin, almost unimaginable, and done with such tenacity.

Unfortunately the dialogue is not cut from the rarest of beef, but for me the best one-liner in the movie is when Chris Sharma’s Spanish girlfriend says casually: ‘We don’t do anything else. We get up, eat breakfast and go climbing.’

For South African audiences it is particularly heartening to see Rocklands being given such a grand stage to perform from, just a pity that the Americans still insist on erroneously calling the best bouldering area in the world ‘The’ Rocklands and tell tales of black mambas living inside ant hills, when they are not even found in the Western Cape. That aside though, Progression is 85 minutes of in-your-face adrenaline and a definite must-watch.

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