As a silent film enthusiast and as someone who has taught close to 30 classes on silent movies at the local university, I have seen a LOT of silent movies including a number of silent documentaries but nothing quite like THE EPIC OF EVEREST. I was vaguely aware of the 1924 George Mallory expedition but was unaware that they had taken a movie camera with them and recorded all but the last 2000 feet of the climb (the last part done with an early telephoto lens). I knew that Mallory and his associate Andrew Irvine had perished some 600 feet from the summit and that their bodies had not been recovered (Mallory’s was found 75 years later and buried on the mountain). This astonishing documentary while essentially just a documentation of their journey becomes so much more because of the quality and the purity of the images captured by amateur cameraman Captain John Noel. Noel doesn’t just record the expedition but enshrines and transforms it by the beauty of the set ups he chose.
The film begins with them setting out and then arriving in a Tibetan village. Although 200 miles away, Mt Everest looms over everything. Noel’s camera captures the look and feel of the village and its people. Remember this is almost 100 years ago and much of what he captures has long since slipped into history. The customs and clothing of the villagers of that time have been preserved forever. As they get closer to the mountain, the natural conditions began to change and we are thrust into an unbelievable landscape of ice and snow. The way the camera catches it you’d think you were on a far away planet.The power and majesty of Everest are all around as it literally becomes a force of nature dooming the expedition. While there is a palpable spirituality to the images, they are enhanced by the title cards which occasionally refer to the mountain as a divine entity (Chomo-Lung-Ma “Goddess Mother of the World”). Some also reflect the condescending British colonial attitude of the time.
A major contribution to the effectiveness of the film is the haunting new score commissioned by the British Film Institute and composed by Simon Fisher Turner. It is a balanced mixture of ethnic music and minimalist simplicity augmented by authentic sound effects including the actual wind from the mountain itself. When you realize that these men were not decked out in the latest equipment but with only tweeds and thick coats and gloves to protect themselves, you then realize their courage and fortitude and become amazed at what they actually did manage to accomplish.. While there are natural similarities to SOUTH, Ernest Shackelton’s ENDURANCE documentary and the Cooper-Schoedsack saga of Persian tribesman, GRASS, those silent films lack the poetry and potency of Captain Noel’s images. I came away from my viewing of this thinking “This is the most amazing documentary I have ever seen!”. I know that I’ll be revisiting it on several occasions.
The Capsule Critic 