Farther Than the Eye Can See

This is a well made film. The story strikes you first. The struggle of the blind climber to the top of everest is a triumph of the human spirit. And though he cannot see, what we see is achingly beautiful. The cinematography is a spectacle, and the editing is spot on. Watch this film. It will make you want to achieve things in your own life. It will make you want to take the next air plane to the Himalayas and make your own trek. The world is a better place with men like Erik who overcome all to achieve their goals. And with a film like this, the achievement is so palpable you feel like you can reach out and touch it.

Wow, I just tried to walk around my office with my eyes closed and couldn't make it two feet - let alone to the top of Everest.

I've watched so many films and television shows about Everest, but this one easily tops them all. One of my favorite scenes is when Erik crosses his first ladder in the ice fall and you can hear him huffing and puffing and trying his best to walk across a ladder spanning a crevasse hundreds of feet deep.

As someone who has climbed Everest, the footage up high is amazing - nothing else comes close to the quality of shots above the 8000m level.

Overall this is an amazing story of accomplishing the impossible.

Erik Weihenmayer was diagnosed with a rare and untreatable disease at age three that saw him gradual lose his eyesight until the point of total blindness at age thirteen. Introduced to climbing early on by his father, Erik decides to join a group of other Americans and achieve what no other blind person has ever achieved by ascending to the summit of the world's highest mountain.

As others have already said, there is an inspirational tale in here about overcoming disability but I'm afraid I must disagree about how well the film brings it out. We have many "perfect" votes for this film and the reviews on this site have hardly a critical word for it and I suspect the reason for this is that they are reviewing the achievement of Weihenmayer more than they are the film itself. The issue I had with it was that the film didn't seem able to bring the theme out at all other than filming the journey to the top itself, there wasn't much more than platitudes about overcoming etc and I didn't think that the design and structure of Brown's film did this side of it justice.

However it is hard to make too big a deal out of this when you watch the film because it is still impressive on many levels. Of course the most obvious thing about the film is the achievement itself, which is amazing for a person with eyesight, far less someone unable to see. The footage is impressive across the whole journey and is amazingly clear and steady at every stage – with some specific shots looking great. For me though Brown should have let the spectacle speak for itself rather than using the climbers as much as he did; yes it is emotional for the people doing it but it is difficult for them to put it into words that the viewer sitting at home can appreciate – instead they too often come over a bit clichéd.

Overall though, for its minor faults it is still an impressive film that has great footage of a unique journey that is not really about "overcoming" disability so much as just not letting it stand in the way. Having said that though – what on earth was achieved by using the dread David Gray so many times during the film?

If you have never seen this Documentary I hope you can find it. Truly inspiring and such a great story. Erik you really are a tremendous human being. All I can say is if this doesn't motivate You to live life to fullest not much will. Just a wonderful story and so worth watching...

Farther Than the Eye Can See (2003)

*** (out of 4)

Climbing Mt. Everest is considered the most challenging thing anyone could attempt. Yearly we hear about people who tried but paid with their lives. Erik Weihenmayer dream was to get to the summit of Everest but what makes his story different is the fact that he is blind.

There's no question that the achievement of Weihenmayer is something truly incredible and there were other firsts done on the expedition that is covered in the documentary. If you've seen enough documentaries on Everest you know that the idea of trying to get a blind person up the mountain might seem like suicide and that very subject is discussed here.

We get some great conversations on why Weihenmayer wanted to achieve this goal and why so many were willing to help him. It truly is a pretty remarkable story and the documentary also gives us some terrific HD quality video of the summit, which was great to see (apparently this was another first).

As far as the film goes, I'd be lying if I said it didn't contain some flaws. I really would have liked to learn more on how he was able to get his body in condition to do something like this. We pretty much meet him, he talks about wanting to do it and then he's on the mountain. The film also doesn't have much of a dramatic punch like it should have considering the subject.

With that said, at just fifty minutes the film certainly flies by and the subject itself makes it worth watching.