What defines a brave person? Deciding to climb the planet’s highest mountain? Making a career of guiding those optimistic high-altitude mountaineers? Staying married to people who make those wildly risky choices?
In “Everest,” a 3-D re-creation of the 1996 disaster that struck climbing teams pushing toward the Nepalese summit, the implications are many. The questions are hard, and the movie doesn’t avoid them. The result is a man vs. nature epic more realistic than most.
Under Baltasar Kormakur’s assured direction, “Everest” is a heart-pounding version of the old “Jack and Jill” poem that mothers often use to warn their children about heights. A crew of fine actors plays the ascent teams — mostly men — making a shaky ascent in pursuit of adventure. The film presents the ordeals of that dangerous sport vividly.
Anyone troubled by images of vertigo, snow blindness and hypothermia should proceed with caution. Everest’s peak, a region above 26,000 feet with scant oxygen, murderous storms and free-fall cliff faces, is called the Death Zone, and not flippantly.
The film documents the details of the tragedy in gripping detail. It treats the events, which killed eight climbers, without a touch of melodrama.
Jason Clarke and Jake Gyllenhaal play expedition leaders Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, respectively. Hall is a wise and circumspect instructor for less-experienced climbers, Fischer a skilled, easygoing party animal rarely short of a grin or a whiskey. When we encounter him at the climbers’ base camp he’s enjoying the summer sun shirtless as if it was his natural habitat.
The two are among the leaders of the small industry devoted to bringing Westerners to the top and back down in safety. That camp itself is a reminder that there are no guarantees. Stone tombs are constructed there at the base as memorials for those whose bodies were lost too high for retrieval.
Preparation for the journey involves weeks of acclimatizing, planning and practice with pickaxes and aluminum work ladders serving as bridges across bottomless gorges. During that period we are introduced to the new arrivals in Katmandu, some for the recognition it will bring them, others for a sense of thrill or mastery or escape. They are real-life individuals who are lightly penciled in but compellingly played by interesting screen presences.
Josh Brolin plays the Texan of the group, Beck Weathers, who sounds very Tommy Lee Jones and feels better climbing than hanging onto his troubled marriage by his fingers. John Hawkes is Doug Hansen, a postman and veteran climber who worked three jobs and saved for years to climb Everest, a privilege usually reserved for the very wealthy. Michael Kelly plays Jon Krakauer, a journalist on assignment for Outside magazine, whose account of the climb became the bestseller “Into Thin Air.”
One of the film’s best moments comes when Krakauer asks the others why they came there to walk to the top of this bleak, treacherous terrain. A few chorus “because it’s there.” Others offer confused smiles. What fascination does it hold for them? How could someone ask such a silly question?
After a sacred ritual at a Nepalese monastery, the climb begins in good weather, proceeding — slower than planned — to the top. The blessings do not hold and a sense of moody, slow-boiling anxiety begins to mount. The teams create traffic jams, use incorrect routes, slide and collide. A massive storm thunders on the mountain. They are hit by a brutal blizzard. They need oxygen canisters that the outfitters stationed along their route; a guide, his judgment suffocating at that high altitude, insists that the supply is empty. The lucky ones claw their way to life. Eight others cannot. Some die quickly, some slowly. In one case, death wins yet life deals another chance.
Kormakur, whose most notable films to date have been sophisticated police thrillers, moves up a level here. “Everest” is an extraordinary true story told in a way that is exciting and cinematically flawless, heartbreaking and soulful. It is stunning and saddening all at once.
“Everest” ???1/2
Rating: PG-13, for intense peril and disturbing images. In English and Nepali.
Showing: Alderwood Mall+ IMAX, Everett Stadium, Thornton Place Stadium 14 + Imax
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