The main line of the story is very simple. The three of them want to conquer the extremely difficult "Shark Fin" of Meru Peak, which has never been summited. But behind the three are more than fearful relatives, bystanders who think they are crazy, and deliberately exaggerated danger. These three seem to have become the usual templates for all kinds of extreme sports films, and Jimmy, who has the dual identity of a director and a mountaineer, shows in the film far more than the usual superficial narratives of the three.
As a director, Jimmy has to bring many advanced photographic equipment all the way up the mountain for shooting. Although many shots are shot with camcorders, it is very difficult to bring so many things in such an extremely complex technical climb. Unlike Mount Everest, and Sherpas help with the back.
There are two episodes that impressed me the most about Jimmy. One is that he promised his mother that if he was engaged in mountaineering, he would at least ensure that he would not die before her. What a deep and complicated love it is for a mother to say such things. And Jimmy said that every time he thinks about this sentence, when faced with a risky decision, he thinks about whether it is possible to break a promise. And when he talked about the past, he said it with a smile, including later that after his mother died, he went to many places. He might have given up and turned back before, but now he has a new feeling: he can go to Done. The other is when he returned to the field to shoot skis after Renan was seriously injured, only to encounter an unprecedented avalanche. When he said it, he was still smiling, and when he said that he was pushed out of the snow by an undercurrent in the end, and sat in the snowdrift, everyone was stunned. The teammates below thought he was dead, but it turned out not to be a big problem. The film put the scene at that time, in fact, Jimmy was stunned. Under the huge mental pressure that made Renan, who was not good at skiing, seriously injured and nearly died, and the huge impact of his own escape, Jimmy could still choose to continue to risk climbing Meru, which others could not feel.
Although Conrad and Jimmy have been partners for ten years, Conrad and Renan are actually more of a pair of mentors. At the beginning of the film, Jimmy talks about 100% complete trust in his partner during the climb, which is a wonderful feeling. And he never climbed with anyone he didn't know well, with the only exception of a buddy that Conrad considered infallible, and Renan was one such buddy.
Conrad talks about Renan much like when he was younger. Conrad later recalled that after his ex-partner, the mountaineer genius Alex Lowe, was killed in an avalanche in Tibet, he couldn't help himself in the survivor's guilt: he had nothing but mountaineering and even lived in an RV. And Alex has a family, a house, and a career. Why didn't he die? This guilt made Conrad later marry Alex's widow. The process and emotions in the middle are too complicated. It’s definitely not that the family just doesn’t understand or worry about mountaineering behavior, but Alex’s widow said that when she married a climber again, the contradiction in her eyes showed Nicely captured by the camera, and even more thankfully, these are preserved as they are and not overinterpreted.
As mentioned earlier, Renan is very similar to Conrad, except that he is poor and doesn't even have a car. In America, you are so poor that you don't even have a car, you really have nothing. Renan hitchhiked all the way to the depths of the desert, free climbing. The director used aerial photography, in the open desert, Renan climbed bare stone mountains with bare hands. This kind of purest love has no trace of axe in front of the camera. Only a director with the same love can capture this love with empathy.
After Renan broke his vertebral artery and was only a millimeter away from death, even if he recovered, he risked a great stroke at high altitude, and still insisted on topping Meru again with Jimmy and Conrad. Last time, they chose to descend less than 100 meters from the summit of Shark's fin, which reflects the greatness of these three climbers more than their successful summit.
Against the background of this caution, Jimmy and Conrad then decided to take him up the mountain, knowing that Renan might not be able to hold on, and the decision to take him up the mountain was even more beyond ordinary people's perception of adventure. On the last day of the summit, Renan, who was confused and could not speak, decided to lead the climb. Although the other two were worried, they still believed Renan's judgment on his physical condition. And then Conrad led the climb with ease, but gave Jimmy the honor of reaching the top of the last segment. Inheritance, trust, humility, and sacrifice converge silently on the summit.
Conrad said he helped his first partner, also his master, Mugs, reach peaks he never had the chance to reach again. Conrad is undoubtedly a well-known climber now, but he is best known in the public eye for his discovery of the remains of Everest pioneer Mallory on the North Slope. To this end, he also made a documentary "The Wildest Dream" in 2010 to explore whether it was possible for Mallory to have reached the summit of Mount Everest under the equipment conditions at that time.
Renan was very excited after reaching the summit, saying that he was especially worried that he would drag his teammates down, so he had to persevere. And this young man will continue to live his life without a house and a car after he goes back. Maybe one day he'll be as famous as Conrad, but more likely he won't. But as long as the mountains he loves are still there, his career will continue.
Jimmy kept laughing and didn't say much when he got to the top of the mountain, but when you see this work he and his wife made together, he has said too much.
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