The Summit
The Summit
R | 04 October 2013 (USA)
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The Summit is a 2012 documentary film about the 2008 K2 disaster directed by Nick Ryan. It combines documentary footage with dramatized recreations of the events of the 2008 K2 disaster. On the way to and from the summit, eleven climbers died during a short time span creating one of the worst catastophes in climbing history. Much of the documentary footage was captured by Swedish mountaineer Fredrik Sträng. Sträng was planning to do a Documentary which was aborted due to the fact that he did not reach the summit. The footage was still valuable to help solving what really did happen since all the climbers had different stories about what happened.

Reviews
Matialth

Good concept, poorly executed.

Dotbankey

A lot of fun.

Bea Swanson

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

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Stephanie

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

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shanayneigh

The visuals are for the most part great, sometimes blurring the line between archival documentary footage and re-enactment. But the movie itself is poorly structured. For seemingly no reason at all it jumps back and forth in time, making one unsure exactly what happened when, and how much time has passed. I imagine a more linear approach would have been much more effective. There was a bunch of climbers divided into three groups, but the movie doesn't do a very good job of introducing them, with a few exceptions, making them indistinguishable from one another. Consequently it's sometimes hard to understand who is where on the mountain and when, exacerbating the problems of the non-linear narrative. It's a pity. This movie could've been great, especially with the documentary footage, but it's lacking in focus.

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toomanypeople2011

The question "what is happening?" came at almost every turn throughout this piece.On the back of incredible climbing stories that have been so well told in the past (Touching The Void and The North Face rank highly in my collection), I sat awaiting this story eagerly… I was however VERY disappointed for two reasons:1. This fails as a documentary to accurately and effectively document and express to the viewer a single piece of detail regarding the event. In 2008 there were a few groups of mountaineers that climbed the mountain - some of those climbers made mistakes - 11 people died and no coherent story could be wrought from the survivors. This SHOULD make for an interesting story, however there is so little viewer involvement, the story just doesn't make sense - even the number of climbers was contradicted at each point on the mountain!?2. The interviewees provided nothing of interest in this documentary. I felt these were a group of selfish, generally reckless people who I had no common ground with. That said, the film maker did not assist these people in accurately supporting them visually in their telling of their piece and as such I was left not understanding where any of them were on the mountain at any particular time, how far away from each other they were, what they were doing or at what point in the climb they were at.In this instance, i am sorry to say my 3* review is for the sensational views of the Himalayas and for what was some interesting POV shooting taken by the team on the mountain.In recommendation, seek out other climbing documentaries. This deserves a re-make.

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SnoopyStyle

On August 2008, 11 mountain climbers die on top of the world second highest peak K2. This is a mix of interviews, documentary and recreations to tell the story of the eclectic mix of international teams of climbers. Also it has interviews with Walter Bonatti who is the youngest member of the '54 Italian expedition to summit K2 for the first time.This is such a compelling true story. The climb and the descend is very tense. The only problem comes with a confused recounting of any controversy in the last 15 minutes. The ending is about a search for what happened to Ger McDonnell. It seems necessary to concentrate much more on him for the whole movie. Since they're doing recreations anyways, it's probably best to just do a narrative story with Ger as the protagonist.

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martinp999

This is a story about tragedy caused by complete and utter confusion. From simple mistakes at the beginning of the attempt everything turned into chaos that cost many lives.So, given that confusion in the subject matter, it would be difficult to remove confusion from the documentary. Sadly, the creators seem to have actually gone out of their way to introduce more confusion. Out of sequence histories, introducing another (related) story, and not attempting to tie everything together.I'm glad that I watched this movie, I just would have liked it to be better put together.

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