In film, as in rock and roll, some things age poorly and some resonate. Old songs by the Rolling Stones still sound great. Last week I was reminded that the 40-minute “A Line Across the Sky,” from 2015, is one of the best climbing films ever.
On Dec. 11, the Crystal Theatre in downtown Carbondale hosted “A Julie Kennedy Special: 5 Point From The Vault,” a 5 Point Adventure Film Festival retrospective emceed by its ebullient founder. Tickets sold out in 19 hours.
The annual four-day 5 Point fest, established in Carbondale
18 years ago, carries the motto, “Come together. Return changed.” A dozen films from the past 15 years showed at the Crystal Theatre, yet another local institution that everyone loves, or should anyway.
“It makes me so happy that we’ve been able to survive,” Julie Kennedy said of 5 point as she took the stage. “It’s no easy task to keep a nonprofit thriving in this valley. With your support we will make it … all the way to [year] 20.” An ice cream social has long been part of 5 Point, and Kennedy vowed to give up ice cream, “which I love more than anything,” this month in return for viewers ponying up $10 they might otherwise spend themselves on the same thing.
I have been involved in the festival since its inception, as a longtime friend of Kennedy, and one of the army of volunteers run by Tracy Wilson. I’ve taken tickets, sold sandwiches, cleaned up, even babysat for a presenter. Last year I drove Kai Lightner, a visiting film subject, for lunch with students at Carbondale Middle School. Lightner, a natural with kids, wanted to know their names and what each liked to do, and whenever someone answered “to read,” he lit up, asking, “What are you reading?”
I’ve nudged my sons to volunteer; I think they liked doing security best. Last year our older son took team spirit a little far, in my opinion, by getting a mullet as part of a 5 Point obstacle course. It was the first mullet administered, before the officiant quite got the hang of it, but hey, it grew out. (Full disclosure: this son is engaged to the fest’s new executive director, Aisha Weinhold.)
If possible, I appreciated “A Line Across the Sky” (directed by Josh Lowell and Peter Mortimer), even more this viewing. The multifaceted film covers a 2014 mission by two of this country’s finest rock climbers, Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold, to traverse the Fitz Roy massif in Patagonia, a ridge with seven peaks and 12,000 feet of vertical climbing. The duo has handily climbed 7,000 feet together in a single day, by linking the steep granite faces of El Capitan, Half Dome and Mount Watkins in Yosemite, but these snowy, rimed-up mountains are a different realm. Caldwell climbed in Patagonia before, but Honnold never even used crampons and brought the wrong kind.
Two Patagonia experts, the renowned alpinists Rolando “Rolo” Garibotti and Colin Haley, class acts both, also aspired to the first traverse of the tower-studded skyline, and tried twice.
“We felt like such gumbies compared to Rolo and Colin,” Tommy said in the film.
The teams started out the same day, but in one of the film’s most uplifting moments, when Garibotti and Haley retreat, Garibotti gives Honnold his crampons. Interviewed later for the film, he called the act his “small contribution” to the effort, and in his writings he credits Haley for the suggestion, but consider: they had dreamed of this historic traverse and yet gave the needed tools to others who could feasibly succeed.
Beyond that, what makes the film is the natural humor of Caldwell and Honnold, who goof and laugh and razz each other amid cold and uncertainty during this gigantic and wildly hard undertaking. They get video footage on their phones. At different points each takes over and carries the effort.
“Two Laps” (Owen Trevor, 2010), filmed in Australia about a years-long swimming duel between elderly friends, is short (six minutes) and enchanting, while “Cold” (Anson Fogel, 2011) imbues us with the sense of what it would be like — a sufferfest — on an 8,000-meter peak in Pakistan in winter, with now iconic imagery of Cory Richards (USA) sobbing after being churned out of an avalanche.
“Where the Wild Things Play” (Krystle Wright, 2017) is a high-energy celebration of women mountain athletes set to the soundtrack of “Short Skirt, Long Jacket” by Cake (“I want a girl who gets up early, I want a girl who stays up late”). In the eight-minute gem “Denali” (Ben Knight, 2015), a loyal canine comforts a young athlete, Ben Moon, during cancer treatment, and then the tables turn. (“Denali” was a phenomenon when it came out, and on Vimeo has racked up nearly 15 million views.)
A revelation was “Johanna” (Ian Derry, 2016), which displays the beauty of silvers and grays and crystalline formations as the Finnish free diver Johanna Nordblad swims beneath the surface of a frozen lake. We see her as filmed from below the ice and also from above, her face looking upward through the hard, thick surface. For me, that image invoked a primal fear, and uneasiness spiked my wonder.
Most of those in the packed Crystal Theatre knew of Hayden Kennedy, son of Julie and Michael Kennedy, an internationally lauded climber and alpinist who was a popular presenter at 5 Point and is ever missed following his death at age 27, in October 2017. The very last showing was “First Light” (Fitz Cahall, 2013), Hayden and Jesse Huey’s hilarious sendup of mountain-sports films, as with faux gravity and self-importance they… string up holiday lights for clients in Boulder. The film brought out the tears, but ended the evening on a sweet and light note.
Next year’s 5 Point iteration is April 23-26, so buckle up for some new stuff then. The fest brings talent and thought to our own town; you may not like every selection, but that’s grist for conversation. This is how local the event is: the credits for “Cold” thank “The Phat Thai Team.”