Inertia 1 & 2 DVD

This DVD has two films, Inertia 1 and 2 by Paul Dusatko that were previously released on VHS and contains over a hundred minutes of footage split pretty evenly between bouldering and sport climbing. The climbing is interspaced with mediocre skateboarding, the milk challenge, wasabi eating and kick boxing.

Inertia 1 features mostly American climbs and climber including a young Chris Sharma and Chris Linder. There isn't really much continuity in regards to geography and titles don't give much information away. The music is a blend of rap and rock and is pure nineties. Nowadays we are used to watching bouldering shot on high quality digital cameras from multiple angles using wide angle lens and pole cams. so the footage in Inertia which was obviously shot on old analog camcorders looks pretty horrible at times.

Sport climbing may be absorbing to do but is (with some notable exceptions none of which are in this film) painfully boring to watch. Chris Linder's ascent of Tusk, 5.14a/b is a prime example, none of the moves look that hard or interesting, he never seems to struggle and it just goes on for ever. The sport climbing is the low point of this film which had too much steep anonymous limestone.

Inertia 2 is geographically more diverse. French climber Fred Rouling does Brad Pit, The Joker and The Buckstone Dyno in the Peak. American Randy Leavitt does the first ascent of Book of Hate, 5.13d an unusual sport route up a featureless corner in Yosemite. Spanish climber Josune Bereziartu does the first female ascent of an F8c+ sport route. Austrian climber Toni Lamprecht climbs a Font 8b+ spotted by the world?s most attentive spotter and then gets literally pushed up a Font 8b by another spotter. We then nip back over the Atlantic to see Midnight Lightning and Thriller in Yosemite. Then a guy climbs a Font 8b in his underpants.

The highlight of the DVD is Spaniard Iker Pou third ascent of Action Direct, the iconic German sport climb. Action Direct is an impressive climb and it would have been hard to make this section boring, dynos between monos on a 45 degree overhang always look good. These films may have been exciting and cutting edge when they first came out but now they are dated. This DVDs only real value is as a historical document of sport climbing and bouldering in the late nineties and early noughties.

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