Nanga Parbat

The true story about the Meissner brothers is so exciting in itself, that it ought to have been possible to make a really suspenseful, exciting, dramatic and emotional movie out of it. This is, however, not the case.

The movie is amateurish, low budget (to its disadvantage), and even at times boring. Also, things were not explained enough for those of us who are not into mountaineering, and who did not know the story of these brothers beforehand.

I got the impression that this was merely a collection of loose scenes, made as illustrations in moving pictures to a story, that the audience was already supposed to know.

I have a limited understanding of this film so am writing this review only because there were no other reviews yet. My understanding is limited because I do not speak German and apparently there has been no release of this film with English subtitles, or at least I could not find one (I did find some English subtitles on the internet but they were both badly out of synch and a mashed Google translation from Russian!). Hence, some of the dialog was rather lost on me and very likely some of the drama as well.

I primarily viewed this film not for the story but in the hopes of spectacular mountain scenery and spectacular mountain climbing sequences. There was some of this, but not nearly enough for my tastes, or I would have given the film a higher rating. A better film (also German but available with English subtitles) is North Face (Nordwand, IMDb #tt0844457) which is both very dramatic and has very spectacular mountain climbing sequences (although I still wanted more there as well).

To my mind, the best parts of the film took place in Pakistan and in the Pakistani Himalayan foothills. Very nice and interesting photography, and I gleaned from the credits that it was actually filmed there. I love seeing exotic locales like that, which I am unlikely to see otherwise, and I found the film worth my time just for that. I would watch it again if I could find a version with good English subtitles.

It's an absolute shame that this movie is the legacy Reinhold Messner wishes to leave of himself.

Despite desperately trying to portray himself as an idealistic hero, he comes out as a shallow egomaniac.

If anything it makes you question the narrative protagonist wants us to remember, which under the guise of heroic achievement is just a bunch of baloney.

The movie itself is a bag of cheap tricks cobbled together on a budget. The play is dull, characters are flat, music is out of place.

Should you watch it? If you had any illusions about Reinhold, you should. Be prepared to have your childhood idol crushed.

I finally got an opportunity to watch Nanga Parbat, which was dedicated to the Messner brothers. You do not witness exciting movie scenes in the first half hour, but you are definitely not bored. Then the tempo drops considerably and the film becomes too far from realism. I can say that I find the performances of the players inadequate and it is impossible to establish an emotional connection. The only good thing was the childhood scenes of the Messner brothers. This movie could have been better. Unfortunately I had to close the movie before it was finished.

From a technical standpoint this movie is a layman's work in many regards:

* Music: Musical score doesn't enhance emotion in any of the scenes. It only serves as a boring, easily written, lame absense of silence. I cannot stand to hear this score any longer. Whenever my mind wants to compare this zero level score to a score of older films, like Luis Trenker's composer Giuseppe Becce's score, it becomes unbearable to me that this is supposed to be the new level of a composer's prowess.

* Actors: I brings me to tears that none of them apparently learned their acting skills. None of them shows appropriate facial expressions, none of them can speak like an actor. No emphasis, no stress, no accent, no innotation. Just a common man's speak. And no mimic. (OK, the priest at the end of the movie, Matthias Habich, is a well regarded exception to the crew.)

* Sound design: Too may slightly coughs, too many hissy fits. I guess they added them due to the absence of an appropriate musical score. It's like being forced to listen to Darth Vater infamously and inappropriately crying "Nooooooo" over and over again.

On the other hand: The camera is marvellous, illumination, color timing and post-production are great to watch, too.

The aeroplane should have been rendered more majestically. In the movie it's just "some vehicle", it's not an important, elevating begin of their dangerous journey.

Now that I've seen the movie, I wish someone gave me the raw cut, an editor, a decent composer, a small orchestra, and a bunch of good dubbing actor's voices! I would completely redo the movies audio to create a movie that's emotionally poignant and great to watch.

This current movie is a pain to watch and appears to be a laboured students' work only.