The latest IMAX offering from the producers of Everest has all the jaw-dropping, stomach-lurching scenery I’ve come to expect when I go to see a movie on the big round screen. The camera follows high-speed trains past Swiss villages carved into the hillsides and over viaducts spanning plunging gorges, and the shots of the peaks themselves, up close and personal, had me gripping my chair arms with delicious vertigo.
But when I wasn’t thoroughly distracted by the views, the movie also had me asking some troubling questions. Unlike some IMAX productions, The Alps has a clear storyline: climber John Harlin III, whose namesake fell from the north face of the Eiger when the younger Harlin was only 8 or 9 years old, has returned to Switzerland to conquer the route that killed his father. He brings with him his wife and young daughter, and while they seem understanding and supportive of his quest, I can’t help but question how a man who was left fatherless could risk doing the same to his own child. To make things even worse, the two local climbers assisting Harlin on his quest are a married couple, who leave two potential orphans below them when they begin the ascent.
I have never climbed a mountain and likely never will, so I’m sure most climbers would say I just can’t possibly understand. And of course, a parent could be killed crossing the street to buy the paper on any given morning — I don’t expect people to give up every sport and hobby when they have kids. But mountain climbing isn’t just any hobby, and the movie makes clear that the north face of the Eiger isn’t just any climb either: John Harlin II is certainly not its only victim. It seems to me that no matter how fulfilling or mind-expanding it must be to reach the summit of a mountain, it remains an inherently selfish act, in that it is an accomplishment that will only benefit the climber. As such, doesn’t it have its proper time and place?
I know, I know. Let the you-just-don’t-get-its begin.
by Eva Holland | Source: MacGillivray Freeman Films (IMAX)
02 Oct 2007 9:49 PM | Comments (1)
After seeing Everest, I can honestly say that I have a lot more sympathy for the poor saps who have to carry the bulky IMAX camera equipment up mountains than for the people they are filming.
Devin
2 October 2007
7:21 PM
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