Watching: Cannabis Rock

Overview

The documentary recounts the brief yet intense "beat" epic of a group of young climbers who, from 1973 to 1975, brought the restless and creative climate of '68 to the rocks and revolutionized the traditionalism of the Piedmontese and Italian mountaineering world. It's an initiatory journey for a tribe of young rebels who, inspired by the theories of Gian Piero Motti, experienced their mountaineering season as an inner torment, some discovering yoga and some marijuana, some rapt with ecstasy and others with rage. A season lived to the sound of Bob Dylan and Popol Vuh, with a profound recklessness towards life. The climbs became true explorations charged with symbolic and visionary meaning, along routes baptized with evocative names: Cannabis, Fessura della Disperazione, Strapiombi delle Visioni, Diedro Sanchez.