Pure - a mini review

I’m at work and need to catch up on email, so here’s my quick and dirty review of “Pure” — a climbing flick from Chuck Fryberger. I’ve not yet read some other reviews I know are out there, so hopefully my opinions here are … pure.

The Good

• Great footage — the climbs were on stage and they performed well


• Unique angles — obviously, lots of time spent getting everything framed well, and yes, I did notice a lot of depth to the shots (foreground and background blurred … very pretty)


• Not afraid to experiment — lots of the action was placed in the upper thirds of the shot. I haven’t seen a lot of this recently, and it’s nice to see someone thinking ahead. It’s a risky thing to do, because you can sometimes lose your subject off the screen if they do something big and unexpected.


• Despite the over-use of what I’m sure is a $200 Final Cut video filter, whatever the video filter was, it looked great. Darkened corners with some de-saturated colors gave it a clean look overall.

The Bad

• As stated before in a tweet, the computerized Mac voice was annoying.


• There was little to no story line


• The Rocklands footage was very blown out


• The title graphics for each climb were very hard to read. The broken-up font made some of the grades completely illegible.


• There was more footage of Fred Nicole walking around with his crash pad than there was of him actually climbing


• The emotional arc of the film went flat. It started out very high energy, came down in the middle, then…stayed at 50% until the end. I actually started getting sleepy during the Switzerland segment.


• The film was basically all about Nalle Hukkataival.


• …and suddenly? The film was over. A very abrupt ending.

The Bottom Line

Overall, what the film lacked in content, it made up for in sheen. It was one of the prettiest climbing films of late and I certainly respect the filmmaker’s eye for getting the good shot. As stated previously, the film spent far too much time on a single climber and had a very abrupt ending. I would have liked to see some other climbers, and I would have liked a “finale” of sorts. If the film had really completed an arc and brought back the engergy level … or if there was a proper ending to the film — I’d be able to give it a better review. Minus those two biggies? I’ll give it a B-.

…can’t wait for the next one.