Unless you have been driven by a desire to climb high peaks at the edge of your capabilities and have had at least one close brush with death, you may enjoy or be fascinated by this documentary, but you will also struggle to understand the appeal that motivates high mountain climbers to risk their lives in these kinds of adventures. Mountaineering is not the only pursuit that draws the thrill seeker to toss the dice with death, but no other endeavor puts the adventurer in the most austerely beautiful places on earth, with little more than his or her own strength, experience, and wisdom to achieve a goal both difficult and sublime. If all goes well, the climber will endure discomfort, exhaustion, moments of uncertainty and doubt, and difficult choices, sometimes to the greatest extreme, to reach the summit and return to safety and the routines of daily life.
Those who criticize the trendy pursuit of reaching the highest peaks with the support of high-dollar commercial operations primarily for the glory of joining an elite cadre of mountaineers, have plenty of justification for their criticism. It is an unworthy goal to pay someone else with superior skill to drag you to the top of a high peak as an unequal partner. When that happens, you have not really earned your spot and the achievement is hollow, even though you may have been working to the limit of your capabilities and you may have faced fear and death.
This is a real story told by those that were there, facing fear and death, and who survived the most deadly day on the most deadly mountain in the world. The many scenes of re-enactment are well-done and very realistic, almost seamlessly serving to help convey the story. The tips of the crampons on nubs of rock, the sense of the vertical precipices, the whoosh of a body accelerating down a steep icy slope, all contribute to the viewer's immersion in the experience of the event from the climbers' perspective. These re-enactments, together with video by the climbers themselves, make for compelling drama.
Acknowledging that many of the elements presented in the film are complicated and confusing, does not diminish the achievement of this documentary. Much of what happened, exactly, is unknown. A certain amount of conjecture is required when the only witnesses are dead. Even so, the events are remarkably well documented by the many others who were there and came back with photography and personal accounts that confirm much of the story.
The viewer may have to work to capture all the elements in a cohesive story, but if they succeed, they will find a story with many elements of truth about human beings and what drives them to climb mountains, both worthy and not.
Those who criticize the trendy pursuit of reaching the highest peaks with the support of high-dollar commercial operations primarily for the glory of joining an elite cadre of mountaineers, have plenty of justification for their criticism. It is an unworthy goal to pay someone else with superior skill to drag you to the top of a high peak as an unequal partner. When that happens, you have not really earned your spot and the achievement is hollow, even though you may have been working to the limit of your capabilities and you may have faced fear and death.
This is a real story told by those that were there, facing fear and death, and who survived the most deadly day on the most deadly mountain in the world. The many scenes of re-enactment are well-done and very realistic, almost seamlessly serving to help convey the story. The tips of the crampons on nubs of rock, the sense of the vertical precipices, the whoosh of a body accelerating down a steep icy slope, all contribute to the viewer's immersion in the experience of the event from the climbers' perspective. These re-enactments, together with video by the climbers themselves, make for compelling drama.
Acknowledging that many of the elements presented in the film are complicated and confusing, does not diminish the achievement of this documentary. Much of what happened, exactly, is unknown. A certain amount of conjecture is required when the only witnesses are dead. Even so, the events are remarkably well documented by the many others who were there and came back with photography and personal accounts that confirm much of the story.
The viewer may have to work to capture all the elements in a cohesive story, but if they succeed, they will find a story with many elements of truth about human beings and what drives them to climb mountains, both worthy and not.