Everest

A Poignant, inspired-from-real-life and most realistically told adventure drama is what Everest can be best described as. Even with its austere, toned down sentimentalities and a flat depiction of events focusing more on the characters than the unfolding drama itself, Everest directed by Baltasar Kormákur, still makes for a great cinematic experience. What sets Everest apart from films like Vertical limit is the sheer masterly and overwhelming imagery of the majestic mountains, which are depicted as a character themselves –as one of the trek guides put it “the mountains have the last say”, and especially so in 3D, which was a very wise decision by the film makers. Thus the 3-dimensional cinematography-by Salvatore Totino, is simply spellbinding and had been put to the best possible use.  The added element of too much air-conditioning inside the theatre which I suspect, was intentional, along with the 3-D visuals successfully transported me to the pristine Himalayan kingdom which is a Milky Way (as in galaxy) away from my mundane, traffic-ridden city and thus made me a fellow mountaineer and a witness to the whole proceedings.

Thus the film begins with a note about the much crowded and competitive guided mountaineering trips to scale Mount Everest that were organized during the late-mid 90s. The film is about the real-life, final Everest expedition  undertaken by Rob Hall, a New Zealander who was one of the three guides belonging to the ‘Adventure consultants’- greatly performed by Jason Clarke. Their rival group is ‘Mountain Madness’ whose guide is Scott Fischer – played by Jake Gyllenhaal, and the two bring in clients from all over the world for scaling the Summit. Rob Hall’s clients include the gruff Texan, Beck Weathers – by Josh Brolin; I will come to him later, Doug Hansen, an ailing postal employee – played by John Hawkes and Yasuko Namba, an experienced Japanese climber attempting to become the oldest woman to summit Everest – by Naoko Mori. Hall had already scaled the Everest four times and the story takes place during his fifth attempt which would sadly become his last albeit being successful. He departs from New Zealand together with their base camp manager Helen Wilton- played by a delightful and dignified Emily Watson, after bidding adieu to his pregnant wife Jan – played by Keira Knightley. He meets up with his clients in Nepal airport and proceeds to the Base camp where he catches up with his old pal Fischer of ‘Mountain Madness’. The team’s arduous climb to the summit, the havoc wreaked by an unpredictable nature and the mounting death tolls form the rest of the story, shown with an admirably muted yet dignified poignancy. I must say, the summit scene could be the most realistic and yet most beautiful and awesome depiction of the scaling of Everest ever. We could feel the import of the achievement (of the climbers) of such a scale and the sense of pride and joy in their faces. The director and cinematographer simply deserve a standing ovation for this particular scene alone.

Their initial journey from Kathmandu to the Base camp makes for some of the most spectacular and beautiful imagery ever to have been captured in celluloid (not to be taken literally as the film is shot in Digital format). The helicopter ride and the corresponding shots are absolutely breathtaking in 3-D format and cinematographer Salvatore Totino, a frequent collaborator of Director Ron Howard and whose body of work includes such massive productions as The Da Vinci code, Cinderella Man and The Missing to name a few, might well be headed for an oscarette, this time. The cast of this film is what you might call as a veritably stellar one with the likes of Josh Brolin who proves to be well cast for the gritty and coarse voiced Texan character, Jason Clarke, Jake Gyllenhall, Sam Worthington – can anyone tell me what on earth must he have been thinking while accepting to do such an insignificant role?, Keira Knightley, Emily Watson, Martin Henderson and Robin Wright. Overall, a great movie which is great in visuals, sound effects, special effects and lead actors’ performances and low on sentimentality and cinematic tempo.  A must watch (especially in 3D) would be my verdict.

Vijay Ram