Quite honestly these days, it is rare that I don't enjoy a film or a good documentary. But this doc really confused me. Not because of the content but in terms of audience. Did the creators want it to be a climbing doc? A nature doc? Tourism? Travel? All of them? Well, while I'm still not exactly sure who it was made for, I can tell you who it was NOT made for, and that's climbers/mountaineers. If you're like me then you know there are simply not enough high altitude mountaineering films & docs, but if that's why you've come here, don't bother. This is not a climbing film...not even a little. That leaves tourist, travel, or nature, at which point I would say they're all fairly similar so the answer is yes.
For the most part, the film is decent enough with regards to production, but for a doc that is 53 minutes long, they simply tried doing to much. It opens with some basic info about Everest then jumps immediately to the 1953 first summit and spends 10-15 minutes giving this somewhat non-linear climbing history. There is nothing unique or new to this portion as it is all stock footage and old film clips from the first ascent. From here it bounces back to the natural aspects of Everest and discusses some of the scientific facts behind the age of the mountain as well as weather patterns, surrounding geography & populations, and the Nepalese culture in general. The rest of the doc is a random, disjointed telling of what Everest is and why it's become popular.
From this point to the end it is a mishmash of all of the above, bouncing back and forth between all the sub-topics mentioned. There is no rhyme or reason as to what is being told, and actually, it's as if the creators were told to "make a doc about Everest that's 50 minutes long and tells us everything about it."
The last 35 minutes or so is this same continued mishmash of the above but including cuts of old TV interviews with climbers. Sadly, the directors didn't even see fit to include the names of people being interviewed or people spoken to about Everest. On top of that, the picture quality bounces back and forth from 1080i to what almost looks like 64-bit Atari games. It's terrible, quite honestly...like they don't even try making it worth while. On top of that, there are many repeated portions. As an example, clips from the 1953 ascent were replayed at least three times through during the doc. The same with some of the stock footage. I mean, come on! It's only 50 minutes...you couldn't make that 50 minutes of original material so you had to repeat multiple clips numerous times? In fact, many little clips of climbers aren't even on Everest! Not even in Nepal...well heck...not even in Asia!!! I suppose for those who aren't obsessed with the mountain they probably wouldn't know this. Still, it's very disappointing. Thankfully, there are a handful of really nice sweeping shots that show the mountain in all its splendor, which for climbers who love the big ultras is always nice.
Look...it's nice to see Everest. There could never be enough content of 8000m peaks to satisfy we who climb, but this was a complete and total disappointment. Off the top of my head I can't think of anybody who I would recommend this to, as there are dozens of better documentaries about Everest. Actually they almost all are better than this one, so in my opinion don't waste your time or money.
