The Alpinist—A brief review.
The best documentaries are the ones where topics arise organically.
Aside from a beautiful cinematic story, The Alpinist (2021) informs on two mental phenomena: ADHD and Flow. The film follows a young Marc-Andre Leclerc as he travels the world climbing near-impossible peaks.
Early in the film, we learn that Leclerc struggles with ADHD, a distraction disorder that comes in many varieties and levels and can exist with comorbid conditions.
When the director asks Leclerc questions, a technical issue occurs. While the crew addresses the problem, the camera records Leclerc’s launch into a state of distraction, illustrating his condition’s severity.
Then we see Leclerc during his ascent, peak after peak, on some of the world’s most challenging climbs at a level of hyperfocus few of us will ever experience—a phenomenon known as a flow state, a term coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
A flow state is when a person is fully immersed in something to the point of an altered experience, usually by reaching an optimal level of difficulty, not mentally or physically easy or too hard but right in the ‘zone’ as it’s sometimes called.
Filmmakers Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen captured something special here—how the most compelling stories come from unplanned and often unexpected moments.