Summit Fever 4K 2022

Summit Fever is one of those films where the setting becomes more important than the story. Yes, director Julian Gilby is a mountaineer and he loves mountains (in 2011 he made a good 'mountain' thriller 'Abducted'), and he shoots mountains, snow and sky so that there is no doubt: it is cool. The people in the background are little bugs, so that right on the screen they are sometimes highlighted with a special cursor. But the story is not about the mountains. It's about people.

An attempt to write down the content of the film, or at least to retell the plot falls apart: well, the guy is drawn to the mountains, he goes to the mountains for a friend, finds and loses friends, finds love... But these are general phrases. Once you get specific, you don't know what to talk about. How the guy traded an office job 'for the risk and exorbitant work'? About 'a guy dragged into the mountains - take a risk'? About greedy sponsors, forcing reckless climbers to risk their lives? It's all wrong.

The movie runs almost 2 hours, and during that time it changes to about 3 films. The first is an office drama - about how a guy literally out of boredom climbs a friend in the mountains for a week and decides to stay there, not giving a damn about work. The second is a sports drama - about an arrogant instructor (an aging Ryan Phillippe) who drags not quite ready guys on a risky venture. The third is almost a horror flick about two groups of climbers getting caught in a thunderstorm and all hell breaks loose (there are even creepy screamers and graphically gruesome deaths). The number of corpses per film is such that any other slasher would be jealous. But dramaturgically, it's handled badly. Characters appear and disappear. In the finale, we follow the survival of six characters, four of whom haven't really participated in the story at all before. Some storylines (about the lone record player) could be thrown out altogether. But it's a shame for the director. After all, there are mountains in the frame. How can you throw anything away?

Anyway, if you want a story about mountain climbers you'd better listen to Vysotsky's songs or watch some 'Vertical Limit'. If you want a story about the mountains, watch a documentary about Everest. And 'Summit Fever' is neither here nor there. The peak is separate, the fear is separate.