...but I was wrong. Now, for some context.
I was uncertain what to expect from "At 23,000 Feet" but based on the short synopsis on here as well as the screen, I thought it would be a mountaineering/climbing documentary, and it ALMOST was. At the very least, that's what the intention was when making the film. But ultimately where it failed was in its very reason for being made- it wanted to portray the connection between man and Mother Nature's mountain tops as the "nearest points to heaven from earth," and one man's journey as both a training mission prior to his future attempt to summit Everest as well as his relationship with the natural surroundings. Unfortunately, as is often the case when climbing in high altitudes, the weather prohibited any attempt on the summit. Prior to that, however, there was very little filming of any climbing on the mountainside, rather a lot of downtime spent at base camp and plenty of "time spent in contemplation."
Contrary to little or no climbing on the mountain, there is a considerable amount of film showing the trek to the mountain and the natural beauty of India in that area. And a lot of natural beauty there is.
The camera work is very well done and is high quality, especially through the lush green hillsides and the villages. Tremendous color is present and the natural beauty is definitely captured during the trek to base camp. This is one of the better aspects of the film, but takes up nearly 2/3 of the time and is all prior to reaching base camp.
One aspect that drove me absolutely nuts was the audio quality. The volume level was highly inconsistent as there was little to no attention given to post production sound editing. At any given moment the dialog was nearly impossible to hear, as the narrator's voice can barely be heard. Without warning, however, the dialog would instantly switch to an output level double or triple the soft area, and the listener would feel blasted out of their skull because it was so loud. This was an issue through the entire film.
Almost as annoying was the fact that the narrator's accent made it very difficult to understand his talking at times, and there is no captioning available for the film. I had to rewind short portions numerous times in attempts to discern what was said onscreen.
All in all, I was just really disappointed with the final product. There is almost no mountain climbing and the overall progression of the film was just kind of slow. Maybe it was just my mood, and other viewers will find it more enjoyable, but for me it was rather boring.
