Everest 4K 2015

The story of New Zealand's Robert "Rob" Edwin Hall, who on May 10, 1996, together with Scott Fischer, teamed up on a joint expedition to ascend Mount Everest.

4k movies reviews
The new film by Balthasar Cormacur is not the first attempt to tell about the events of 1996, recognized as one of the most dramatic in the history of the conquest of Everest. Moreover, the film has been in development since the end of the nineties, but, for a number of reasons, it has found its existence only now - and, taking into account the development of modern film production technologies, this delay is not discouraging at all. Technical aspects of the film are impressive enough, but at the same time one cannot call 'Everest' an attraction or 'entertainment' - just exactly the entertainment factor was sacrificed here in order to try to reproduce the chronology of events as impartially as possible.

Nevertheless, the beginning of the film is shot quite typical for a high-budget blockbuster, and does not presage anything unusual: we are hastily introduced to the numerous actors who are still full of energy, and do not suspect the coming misfortunes. The characters exchange routine jokes, and with a few 'classic' lines we can already have a sketchy idea of their characters, areas of activity and life situation. The abundance of characters does not, of course, help to reveal their characters: many of them are in the frame briefly, and we can judge them mostly on the basis of their actions in real time. In the first part of the film we get a brief but very informative glimpse into the subtleties of mountaineering craft - the authors try to give us maximum information in a very compact form in order to understand subtleties of characters' physical state and their feelings. In this situation there is not always enough emotion in the film, but on the other hand, this allows us to avoid irritating pathos and make the people more 'normal'. And if there were less musical accompaniment, the degree of realism would have increased even more.

The creators have driven themselves into a very strict framework, trying to reconstruct the events with a maximum degree of impartiality - this does not allow for the use of personal confrontation in the story in the usual Hollywood manner. After all, if the story had been fictional, they would probably have made someone the scapegoat, and not fail to generously spread the right moral about 'true heroes' over the plot - but in reality, many participants in the events have polar opinions about the causes of tragedy, so, out of respect for the prototypes, sharp corners had to be dropped, and the emphasis put on the obvious powerlessness of man before the forces of nature, or, if you will, before the evil fate as such, in a more philosophical sense. All this makes the characters sketchy in a general sense, but also strikingly alive in each particular moment when they need to make decisions. When the clouds thicken, the paramount need is to survive and, if possible, to save those in need--and this is where the true nature of man shows itself fully in real action, not in lengthy philosophy. The panoramic views and snowy silence in the first half of the film are impressive - but it is in the second act that the atmosphere completely engulfs and does not let go, forcing you to watch the events with bated breath. The effect will be stronger if you periodically remind yourself of such parameters as wind speed of 35 m/s and temperature of -40C which the mountaineers faced during the descent.

Due to a strong degree of detachment, Everest, especially in the second half, quite successfully ignores the typical Hollywood pathetics, showing true equanimity - in a certain way the picture even turns into a kind of test for the viewer, because the viewing is not always comfortable. It is also worth noting that the real story, in fact, is linear and predictable, so you should not expect any intriguing plot twists (speaking of 'entertainment'). The film mostly works as a 'chronicle' rather than a 'drama', although there are a few emotional episodes (which do not descend into manipulation, which is not unimportant). In the end, 'Everest', despite its title, turned out to be somewhat down-to-earth, but that makes it more honest. Such a concept, combined with the strongest technical side (and there is a lot to look at) neatly and with due respect brings the real story to the screen, fortunately leaving aside the annoying moralizing.

Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (51.4 Mb/s)
Resolution: Upscaled 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Audio
English: Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
Czech: Dolby Digital 5.1
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
Polish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1

Subtitles
English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish.