(Drama, non-fiction, but not in the style of a documentary) Directed by Graeme Campbell, written by Keith Lackie. Starring Eric Johnson (Laurie Skreslet), Jason Priestley (John Lauchlan), John Pyper-Ferguson (Roger Marshall), Tom Rooney (Bill March), Gord Rand (Pat Morrow), Kishor Limbu (Pasang Sona). Not to be confused with Everest (2003) which is about a 'derelict teenager', Everest (1998) about a different expedition, or Everest (1974) which is Italian but not otherwise documented on www.imdb.com. Pat Morrow on the summit of Mount Everest, 1982 (Spoiler warning) The year is 1982. On February 5 of that year, advanced ice climber John Lauchlan was swept off Weeping Wall, an ice route in the Canadian Rockies (Banff Park), by an avalanche, and killed. The movie shows it differently (possibly for technical or financial reasons). The movie shows him killed while rappelling down an exposed face using a single knife-blade piton as his rappel anchor. This procedure is not generally recommended and it is doubtful that an experienced climber would consider such a thing. The accident footage shows summer weather, though Lauchlan died in February. His partner, Laurie Skreslet, vows to summit Everest in order to honor their friendship. Meanwhile, climber Roger Marshall has secured an Everest permit for a Canadian expedition for the current year. Marshall is lacking in the social graces by all accounts and likes to punch people out. He has no organizing skills other than 'follow me, guys' and appears to be an anarchist. Climber Bill March, no friend of Marshall, organizes a Canadian Everest expedition on the strength of Marshall's permit. March is a leader, an organizer and a people pleaser, the sort of man who can raise funds for an expedition and who can plan, budget and recruit. He is also a climber. March pulls together a very strong team of climbers, 20 Canadians and 39 Sherpas, not including Marshall, who has been dis-invited. In spite of some divorce threats by frightened wives, the team secures its funds, buys its equipment and airfare, and heads for Nepal. After a three week trek from Katmandu to Everest, March finds Marshall waiting at base camp -- a bad dream who won't go away. March finds himself powerless to stop Marshall from joining the expedition. Chomolungma (Goddess Mother of the World, aka Sagamartha, aka Everest) is not in a welcoming mood this year. Now it is Sherpa Pasang's wife begging Pasang not to climb. He gently insists on hiring on as an Everest porter. Several days later, Pasang and two other Sherpas are buried and killed in an avalanche while climbing the Khumbu icefall. Some try to blame Bill March for this, for not warning Base of the storm from Camp I (dead radio batteries are involved). Others say that the major avalanche had been building for weeks and couldn't be predicted. A day or two later, climber Blair Griffiths is killed in the icefall by a collapsing serac. The expedition sponsors pull out, the Sherpas quit, the expedition is near failure. March and Marshall argue again and Marshall walks out. March talks the Sherpas into continuing on. The climbers agree to climb on a shoestring basis due to funding cuts. Climbing as one unit above the icefall, they slowly move up the mountain, establishing Camp II in the southern coomb, Camp III on the Lhotse face above the coomb, and Camp IV at the South Col (26,200 ft). Skreslet had ribs broken during the icefall accident. Having been told to quit the team, he now ascends the icefall solo, an unheard of act. At one point he leaps into a crevasse to grab a ladder that is fixed on the other side. (I suspect that the script writer had just seen the movie Vertical Limit and wanted to play the same sort of games. I've climbed a few mountains myself, and the more seasoned climbers I've met, such as Everest summiter Dwayne Congdon, aren't prone to foolish actions.) Skreslet rejoins the group as they are leaving Camp I. With great difficulty and with the usual quarrels, Skreslet, a New Zealander named Paxton, and Sherpas Sungdare and Lhakpa Dorje move up the southeast ridge. (Documents I've read so far don't tell me whether Paxton was a real character or fictional.) Paxton runs out of oxygen and has to descend to South Col. On October 5, 1982, Laurie Skreslet, Sungdare and Lhakpa Dorje make the summit of Mount Everest. On October 7 Pat Morrow, Pema Dorje and Lhakpa Tshering also summit. (In the movie Morrow and Skreslet are shown summiting at the same time. In fact there were two successful summit attempts involving two Canadians and four Sherpas. ) They return alive the same day to the South Col. As someone has remarked about Mallory and Irvine, the ascent only counts if you return alive. Nowhere in my other film reviews will you find words like "stunning, profound, inspiring", but all these words apply here. Except for the inaccuracy about Lauchlan's death, and the matter of Skreslet's and Morrow's separate summit climbs, this powerful film seems to be factual in content and appears to be factual in terms of shooting on Everest all the way to the summit. If it wasn't shot on Everest all the way to the summit, the scenes correspond exactly to every photo and every account I've heard of on the Everest southeast ridge route, and the difficulties involved. A tremendous achievement, which would have been stronger if the writer and director had confined themselves to the facts.
