Sporting Life
Federer documentary paints an emotional picture, not a revealing one
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In the documentary Federer: Twelve Final Days, the tennis superstar takes us for a long, sweet, gently indulgent walk through his last days.
PHOTO: AMAZON
Slowly the camera sweeps over stone and peers from above. Below the trees look tiny. A man, attached to no rope, is climbing. Just him and the stone in dangerous, soaring communion. Birds shriek as if to summon others: “Come, see, this magnificent madman.”
These are the opening frames of Free Solo, the Oscar-winning documentary on Alex Honnold’s ascent of the 900m vertical face of El Capitan. It is the greatest athletic feat I have seen. Honnold cannot miss as other athletes do. If he does, he falls.