Everest
"We don't need competition between people. There is competition between every person and this mountain. The last word always belongs to the mountain."
On the morning of May 10, 1996, climbers from two commercial expeditions start the final leg of their journey to the top of Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain. When a violent storm suddenly rolls in, the climbers' struggle to reach the top is replaced by a fight for survival.
The movie is based on the true story of the accident, which has previously been reflected in several books. The most famous is "In to thin air" by Jon Krakauer but also Anatoli Boukreev, Lene Gammelgaard and Beck Weathers have written their versions of what happened on the mountain. Göran Kropp, who was at the base camp when the accident happened, describes the events in his book 8000+, written by David Lagercrantz. However, unlike the others, Kropp has not been included in the movie.
The movie is made by Baltasar Kormákur and the main characters are played by none other than Jake Gyllenhall, Jason Clark, Josh Brolin and Keira Knightley. Before I saw the movie, I didn't understand how it would be possible to make a movie about this subject without it being silly entertainment with little basis in reality.
The film starts off a bit slow and generalizing but eventually turns into an ice-cold, breathtaking nail-biter with tearful moments. Although the grandiose visuals outweigh the details, I still think it does a decent job of capturing the problems commercial climbing expeditions have to deal with and what its members can be like. In particular, I think the movie excels in showing the exhaustion of the more or less experienced climbers combined with the unpredictability and fear of the weather in high mountains. It may not be possible to get much closer than this without participating in an expedition yourself.
It is also the case that the occasionally magical photography will stay with the viewer much longer than the film's flaws. Bergen, as always, has the last word.
