I really enjoyed this film, finding it particularly engaging and informative, especially after having just watched the poorly crafted mountaineering documentary 'The Summit.'
It was clearly a passion project, and it also revolved around attempting to recreate the fated Mallory expedition, so, unlike others, I wasn't too bothered by the fact that Conrad Anker featured a lot in this documentary.
It felt a little bit forced in places (he clearly seemed to be reading from a script or reciting practiced lines, rather than speaking from the heart, at times) but there were still enough fascinating insights to overlook this sort of stuff (remember, he's an experienced climber, not a documentary filmmaker!)
The one aspect of the documentary that I did find frustrating, and thus the lower rating, was the fact that it was clearly built on endorsing one particular theory about the Mallory expedition, rather than taking a more unbiased approach and allowing their conclusions to simply be part of the wider speculative mix.
This bias meant that we did not get to hear all of the various theories about what possible route they could have taken or whether they even made the climb, let alone the summit, etc.
It also created a situation in which some rather glaring holes in their re-creation attempt of Mallory's possible final climb were completely ignored.
For example; even though he was inexperienced at altitude, Conrad Anker's partner for the re-creation attempt was a very capable rock climber, whereas Mallory's partner was a rower with no climbing experience.
Or the fact that they made their re-creation climb dressed in modern climbing gear, whereas the clothes and boots used by Mallory were very rudimentary and would not have afforded the same advantages to him.
In fact, aspects of their modern re-creation expedition were a little bit gimmicky in places and really added nothing of substance to the documentary - like the very brief use of old style climbing clothes and boots similar to the ones worn by Mallory and his team.
If they'd carried out their whole re-creation expedition wearing the old style gear (something I would never expect them to do in a million years) then that would have added something truly important to the documentary.
Simply putting it on for a brief period was merely a gimmick and it really only resulted in one interesting piece of information - that the old style clothing provided far less protection from the elements, and the boots were far less suitable for climbing than modern gear is. This really should have featured in the final narrative as evidence that challenges the theory that the documentary was proposing, but, alas, it is simply mentioned and then quickly moved on from.
There are also other issues around the timing of the original attempt, and whether they had appropriate oxygen supplies, etc, to complete the climb.
All in all this is a very watchable and interesting documentary that is let down by one simple flaw: it doesn't document all of the evidence, and it really only presents their preferred theory about Mallory's summit attempt (and even then, it's only a very brief examination of that attempt, and a lot of unwarranted conclusions are drawn from it.)
That being said, I'd still highly recommend this movie to others.
It was clearly a passion project, and it also revolved around attempting to recreate the fated Mallory expedition, so, unlike others, I wasn't too bothered by the fact that Conrad Anker featured a lot in this documentary.
It felt a little bit forced in places (he clearly seemed to be reading from a script or reciting practiced lines, rather than speaking from the heart, at times) but there were still enough fascinating insights to overlook this sort of stuff (remember, he's an experienced climber, not a documentary filmmaker!)
The one aspect of the documentary that I did find frustrating, and thus the lower rating, was the fact that it was clearly built on endorsing one particular theory about the Mallory expedition, rather than taking a more unbiased approach and allowing their conclusions to simply be part of the wider speculative mix.
This bias meant that we did not get to hear all of the various theories about what possible route they could have taken or whether they even made the climb, let alone the summit, etc.
It also created a situation in which some rather glaring holes in their re-creation attempt of Mallory's possible final climb were completely ignored.
For example; even though he was inexperienced at altitude, Conrad Anker's partner for the re-creation attempt was a very capable rock climber, whereas Mallory's partner was a rower with no climbing experience.
Or the fact that they made their re-creation climb dressed in modern climbing gear, whereas the clothes and boots used by Mallory were very rudimentary and would not have afforded the same advantages to him.
In fact, aspects of their modern re-creation expedition were a little bit gimmicky in places and really added nothing of substance to the documentary - like the very brief use of old style climbing clothes and boots similar to the ones worn by Mallory and his team.
If they'd carried out their whole re-creation expedition wearing the old style gear (something I would never expect them to do in a million years) then that would have added something truly important to the documentary.
Simply putting it on for a brief period was merely a gimmick and it really only resulted in one interesting piece of information - that the old style clothing provided far less protection from the elements, and the boots were far less suitable for climbing than modern gear is. This really should have featured in the final narrative as evidence that challenges the theory that the documentary was proposing, but, alas, it is simply mentioned and then quickly moved on from.
There are also other issues around the timing of the original attempt, and whether they had appropriate oxygen supplies, etc, to complete the climb.
All in all this is a very watchable and interesting documentary that is let down by one simple flaw: it doesn't document all of the evidence, and it really only presents their preferred theory about Mallory's summit attempt (and even then, it's only a very brief examination of that attempt, and a lot of unwarranted conclusions are drawn from it.)
That being said, I'd still highly recommend this movie to others.