‘Everest’ offers a chilling look at a deadly climb

Naoko Mori is the quiet but resilient Yasuko Namba, one of the few people to ascend the highest mountain on every continent.

The frigid temperatures, random stormy weather conditions, avalanches, and the steep and rigid climbing would be enough to make most people avoid such an excursion.

In addition to English-language films Contraband and 2 Guns, the director also made the excellent 2012 drama The Deep, which told the true story of an Icelandic fisherman trying to survive after his boat capsized; the film was almost shortlisted for an Oscar in the foreign-language category.

Climbing Mount Everest is no task for rookies and even the most practised, qualified trekkers are at risk when they’re standing 8,848 metres above sea level. What do you learn about the film making process for such an epic undertaking?

Hall was the mountaineer who in 1991 co-founded Adventure Consultants, a guiding business which, for a mere $65,000 USA , would take clients to the top of Everest and back. Two other tour groups ascend the mountain at the same time, one of which is led by the laid-back and too cool for school Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal). Despite this, screenwriters William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy have constructed a clear and compelling account, which, in approved Disaster Movie style, gives the protagonists about as much human light and shade as the job requires without blocking the view to the summit (Emily Watson as Helen Wilton, pictured below). But as far as Hollywood dramatizations go, at least this “Everest” makes the most of what special effects can create. Some of the facts and reasons for what happened can never be known, since they were lost along with the eight climbers who never came back. How many people are stuck at the peak? Just how bad will this storm turn out to be?

Baltasar Kormakur’s film is thrilling to watch-especially across an IMAX screen in 3-D. There are a lot of harrowing moments where viewers will not know what is going to happen next. Still, the men are experienced guides who put their own egos aside in order to work and climb together safely. I think they were surprised by just how intense this could all be. Weathers says when he’s not conquering a mountain it feels like he has a “black cloud” following him. The mountain is a different kind of beast, one that may look inviting but in a flash it changes its mind and brings nothing but death and destruction.

“They had to take some creative liberty and compress some information and events”, Heil explained. The all work well together and make it s a film that is worth seeing.

The movie has earned 8.5/10. Or a female protagonist (although two women are on the climb, most of the actresses here spend their time on the phone, crying silently). It’s brutal real life that pulls no punches. It’s a film with heaps of ice, snow, facial hair, mountains, whiskers and men yelling frantic directions at one another through their cold whiskers. With director of photography Salvatore Totino, the camera swoops around its climber characters and captures shots of great heights that, particularly in its IMAX 3-D exhibition, can genuinely induce vertigo.