Le sommet des dieux

This excellent watch lets you in on the minds and hearts of the mountain-climbers. I'm no mountain climber, but watching Habu Joji's journey made me realise -

Mountain climbing is one of the few places that demands you to live-in-the-moment. One miss and you risk your life. In that sense, it is one of the few places where the thrill of living-on-the-edge intersects with truly living-in-the-now.

And those who've experienced this first-hand find any other way to live too dull to be considered "living". And at that point, it's either "living" climbing-mountains and taking risks or not living. And, when you look at things from this perspective, all the risk mountain climbers take starts to makes sense..

A beautifully intricate and simple story about taking that step forward.

This film is going to have a short review. A very beautiful piece of art that I recommend everyone to see. A simple story with realistic consequences and surreal sequences. It shows both the danger of climbing and the unexplainable passion behind the journey to the top. Such a magnificent tale.

As' "The Summit of the Gods" (2021 release from France; 95 min.), we watch 2 guys from a distant past climbing up Mount Everest. We are then introduced to Makato Fukamuchi, a Japanese journalist-photographer who is in Nepal covering another Mount Everest expedition. Later that day, he is offered what is described as George Mallory's original camera from his doomed 1924 expedition. It seems that a climber named Habu Joji got his hands on that camera somehow. Makato needs to track down Habu and get to the bottom of this... At this point we are less than 10 min. Into the animated film.

Couple of comments: let me preface my comments by saying that I had never heard of (or read) this manga before seeing the film, and hence I cannot comment how closely the film adaptation sticks to the original manga, both in story and in spirit. But I will say this: while it took me a little bit to figure out what was going on plot-wise in the film, before I fully realized it I was drawn into this story and this film, hook, line and sinker. Indeed the strong story telling is key, but there is more to it than that: the animation is fantastic, with an incredible attention to detail, and the original score is equally superb. As for the movie's audio: even though the movie is set in today's (meaning 1990's) Japan (with flashbacks to earlier side stories in Nepal), all characters speak in French. Do yourself a favor and be sure to change the movie's settings to French audio with English subtitles, rather than the default setting of English dubbed. It makes a significant difference (I watched the first 5 minutes in dubbed English, and then changed the audio setting to French with English subtitles, restarting the movie from scratch). Bottom ,line: I found myself almost transfixed by the whole experience, and was sorry to see the movie come to its end.

"The Summit of the Gods" premiered at this year's Cannes film festival to critical acclaim. Some European countries were lucky enough to see this released in theaters. In the US, we had no such luck. The movie premiered on Netflix over the long Thanksgiving weekend, and almost immediately was trending on Netflix. I haven't read the original manga that the movie is based on and hence watched this as a stand-alone experience. If you love animated films, or are into extreme sports, I'd readily suggest you check this out on Netflix, and draw your own conclusion.

...that chronicles the tragedies and triumphs of obsession and ambition like no other film I've ever seen.

The hand-drawn animation is among the most gorgeous ever put to screen, emphasising the sheer beastly size of the landscapes that these mountaineers attempt to scale. It really makes the futility of their goals all the more tangible.

Yet at the same time, the rich emotion experienced by these characters' successes and failures is also on full display, and it serves as a reminder that our physical insignificance easily pales in comparison to the passions and persistence in our humanity.

This is easily among the top 5 best films of 2021.

Adapted from Jiro Taniguchi's manga, The summit of the gods is a visually gorgeous animated feature. It follows two characters, Habu and his obsession with climbing Everest and Fukamachi, a mountain photographer investigating Habu, and an old timey camera that may hold the secret of George Mallory's expedition...

The animation is incredibly good, conveying the mountain atmosphere extremely well, the sound design and music really emphasize it, adding to the unique feeling of such setting.

The story is also very well adapted from the material, streamlining the manga's narrative to focus on the two main characters and their respective quest. Keeping the back and forth in time of the book, it really works well at shining a light on the character's past, while also following theri ascension.

A wonderful animated movie that deserves your curiosity.