The Man Who Skied Down Everest

I saw this movie many years ago on TV, and thoroughly enjoyed it. As a previous reviewer said, the title is somewhat misleading; I usually refer to it as "The Man Who Fell Down Everest"!

What struck me about this film is that the expedition is so *Japanese*. For example, all the equipment is stencilled "JESE" for "Japanese Everest Ski Expedition". They carry collapsible bridges for crossing crevasses. And they lugged old-style videotape equipment up the mountain so the skier could record and critique his practice runs; there is a funny scene of the Sherpas watching _Bonanza_ tapes dubbed into Japanese.

All in all, I found it fascinating. And it won the Oscar for best documentary that year.

If you watch this movie because you expect a skiing movie, you will be disappointed. This is a movie about assaulting mount Everest and all that was involved in doing so in 1975. It is combined with a healthy dose of Japanese philosophy and a haunting narrative by Doulas Rain, the voice of Hal the computer in 2001. The narrator reads from the diary the skier kept during the assent. That combined with the music and the films overall look and pace makes it unlike anything I have every scene before. It is a dark journey up the mountain.

I found it very moving and throughly enjoyed it. If you are a sports guy, skip it... Otherwise, give it a try.

I first saw this beautifully filmed documentary many years ago and never forgot it. The most interesting parts for me were the trek to base camp and traversing the ice fall. Many of the shots in the movie offered unique perspectives that really showcased the scale and grandeur of the region. I felt that sometimes the thoughts of Miura were overly philosophical and romantic, but what I was hearing was a translation from Japanese to English, so final conclusions are not possible without understanding Japanese. The actual skiing down Everest sequence was short but dramatic. I think that skiers could empathize more with the difficulties of trying to stay in control on such hard and bumpy ice! Crazy stuff! One reviewer had noted that Miura had died shortly afterward but this is not the case. Apparently he became the oldest person to summit Everest when he did it at age 75 in 2008. Quite a man! All these years later, The Man Who Skied Down Everest is as much about climbing Everest in 1970 as about actually skiing down Everest.

Reading the synopsis above does a pretty good job of explaining how crazy/ambitious of a stunt this was, but doesn't really do justice to the price that was paid by so many who were hired to help get Mr. Miura up Mount Everest so he could put on a pair of skis and do one of the craziest things a person has ever attempted. This film really is a dichotomy between the grandeur of the stunt vs. the price paid for this entirely self-indulgent, off the wall crazy foray into one's ego. The actual stunt itself is probably the most thrilling thing ever put on film and is incredibly exciting especially for a generation brought up with extreme sports, but only showing this scene betrays the intent of the film, which is to portray the unnecessary suffering of the poor Sherpa's who lost their lives because they had no other option but to accept the job. This film is incredibly sad and exciting at the same time and is a perfect metaphor for the first world (Miura's Japan) taking advantage of the third world (the ethnic Sherpa people of Nepal) for purely selfish means. For the classroom it checks several boxes because of the fact it is immensely exciting, borderline crazy, yet manages to illustrate how the inequality in economic power between nations can lead to pure exploitation, damaging the indigenous cultures so you can for instance, ski down Mount Everest!

"The Man Who Skied Down Everest" won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature back in 1976. I most of this is because of the amazing cinematography. That's because apart from that, I found the film a bit pretentious, boring and disingenuous.

The film consists of a western actor reading the journal entries of a Japanese guy who loves skiing in extreme situations. Some of these entries are insightful and interesting, others extremely pretentious. Regardless, you get LOTS of talk, when the film would have been so much better had it had some quiet moments. Additionally, when he eventually gets to this feat, you learn that he only went NEAR the top of this huge mountain and then skied down a very small portion. It's an amazing act, but not at all what you'd expect given the film's title. The bottom line is that I found myself nodding off a lot as I watched this film and that is not a good sign. Easy to skip.