THE SUMMIT – The Review

One in four climbers who successfully summits K2, will die on descent. These overwhelming odds are the basis for director Nick Ryan’s THE SUMMIT – an incredible story of courage and heroism.

Commonly known as Savage Mountain, K2 is an extension of the northwestern Himalayan Mountain range, and is located in the remote region between Pakistan and China, though most mountaineers won’t risk climbing the more hazardous side of China.  It has rightfully earned the title of the second most murderous mountain.

With any high risk sport comes the love of the challenge and in August 2008, 22 climbers from several international expeditions converged on High Camp of K2, the last stop before the summit. 48 hours later, eleven had been killed. When a climber falls or wanders off the trail, the unwritten code of the sport is to leave them for dead. Survival depends on self-preservation at all costs.

THE SUMMIT plays like a mystery about one extraordinary man, Ger McDonnell, the first Irishman to summit K2.  His team leader left him behind while his best friend on the mountain, Pemba Gyalje Sherpa, searched to find him and rescued several others.

It is Ger’s final moments that have been called into question by the last climber who spoke to him alive.

The film shows his heart-breaking dilemma where he stumbled onto a disastrous scene: three climbers tangled up in ropes and running out of time.  Had Ger McDonnell stuck to the climbers’ code, he might still be alive.

In a century of assaults on K2, only about 300 people have ever seen the view from the second highest peak on the planet. More than a quarter of those who made it didn’t live long enough to tell the tale. They were simply killed by trying to get down. THE SUMMIT is about the very nature of modern adventure and one that remains up for debate.

The film utilizes interviews, archival footage from 2008, recreations and aerial footage of K2.  The recreations were filmed in the Jungfrau region in Switzerland, beneath the north face of the Eiger, a mountain in the Bernese Alps also in Switzerland.  What’s most impressive is the actual footage from the climb – leaving the viewer with a firsthand feel of how it must have felt for these climbers.

Director of photography Robbie Ryan’s (Wuthering Heights, Ginger and Rosa) effectively puts on the screen the massiveness of the mountain by keeping the audience continually in the moment with his compelling footage.

Going light on mountaineering history, writer Mark Monroe’s heartfelt screenplay shows the human side of these individuals’ and Ger’s stories from that fateful expedition of 2008.

While THE SUMMIT portrays tragic events, it is also a staggering story about survival.

The documentary will provoke questions, but it will give you answers as well. A very engaging film.

4 out of 5 stars

Opens in St. Louis Today at Landmark’s Tivoli Theatre.