A Mellow Cresciano "New King Lines"

A home-turf film, unhurried and specific, and better for people who like development work than for people who want sends. A snowstorm shuts Val Bavona, so the Mellow crew drops down to Cresciano, the Ticino boulder field that has produced hard classics since the late nineties. Giuliano Cameroni climbs with Daisuke Ichimiya, Clément Lechaptois, Marine Thevenet and his brother Diego.

This is for climbers who care about how new lines get found on old rock. The cast is a group of friends rather than a roster, and the appeal is watching people who know this granite keep finding things left to do. Skip it if you need a headline problem. The film works an infamous long-standing project and a set of newer lines, and it never sets one above the rest.

What works is the pace. Twenty minutes with no hurry lets you see the cleaning, the brushing and the false starts that most edits cut. The snowstorm framing is honest too: this was plan B, and the film says so. What it leaves out is names and grades. I finished it without a clear list of what got climbed, which for a film about new lines is a real gap.

The North Face presents: ALPHANE covers the same Ticino valleys with a bigger cast and a V17 at the center. That is the film for the top end. This is the film for the rest of the boulder field, and for Cameroni in particular, who is a local here and a visitor there.