Committed II Reviewed

Climbing, in it's purest form is about embracing the unknown. It's unclear if this has been realized on the British Isles. That was my preconception before watching yet another headpointing film, Committed II, and this time in series format, no less.

Well, the mostly unknown. You know it, but you don’t, sort of.... Get it? Apparently, there are some subtleties to climbing and Dave and Paul of Hot Aches are meticulous in portraying the essence of a climb and the whole mystical journey a climber goes through as their life flashes before their shoddy gear a rather long way below them. The old adage of “DON’T FALL” is well alive and kicking in Britain.

It’s those very subtleties that keep popping up that’s the genius of Committed II. One moment you're watching Tony af Siurana talking about the beauty of Dave McCloud’s climbing and the next thing you know the Scot is down climbing PERFECTLY good bolts, five of them, in fact, just because he’s so versed in the fine school of hard British trad. It is a well known fact that the Brits wore long johns in Hawaii, because that’s what the military code said their attire should be. I digress, but may one day clearer heads prevail…

Anyway, somehow this all fits together and you’re left wondering why that woman belaying Dave doesn’t look at all like Claire. Sure enough the boys at Hot Aches have enough wit to take an occasional poke at classics like E11. This time it’s James Pearson in the closet and his girl seems to be so used to it that after putting her bike helmet away she promptly closes the door on him. Nonetheless, they do have a real talent for telling the story of a single climb. Throughout the film, and it takes the better portion of an evening, you get to see a handful of climbs, but the climbs and the characters invite you into their relatively sketchy world and hold you there, enthralled. That said, I have no immediate plans to go climbing in Britain, I’ll ask Tony just how many bolts he thinks it’s alright to pre-clip long before it comes to that.

But back to the subtleties, the presence of Dave weighs heavily on the film. Dave is the polished kind, almost like a scaled up version of our beloved Wulfie, and as such, we are forced to revisit Rhapsody. This time with Steve McClure, and he’s climbing on preplaced gear and talking about how it’s a really safe route and if it were at all scary he wouldn’t be there. Then he takes a 40 footer. Talk about fodder for the E-debate and how about that for subtlety? Hats off…

About now I should warn you that if you’ve a stateside adrenaline junkie, sit down, shift gears and give it a try, we all know variation is the spice of life. Right? Right, that’s the Walk of Life and it’s just stunning, and it’s a long, long way down and the striations all face the wrong way and I’m not even going to mention the grade or the ethics behind it, it’s simply stunning. It’s climbing that keeps you honest and James comes across as exactly that and then it starts raining….

It’s not often that a film lives up to the marketing behind it but Committed II is in fact five fantastic climbing stories. It’s weaknesses only enhances it’s strengths and leaves me wondering if for all that’s lacking in the British game that they might just hold a subtle key to what the essence of climbing is.

The Committed II DVD is available from http://www.tielma.com/ for 295 kr.