There have been fictional climbing films made before, featuring shots of nature so daunting they look unearthly. But “Meru” is groundbreaking in that it is the first climbing documentary to pair solar-powered shots, exceptional directing, outstanding editing, and first-class cinematography with a complex extraordinary journey in itself.
The film stars Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk as they embark on a journey to defeat Shark’s Fin on Mount Meru, an impossible 20,000-plus foot mountain no climber had yet been able to summit. They tackle the climb many times and struggle at different points within their journey to decide whether or not it is worth it to continue pushing on toward the top of this never-before-conquered mountain.
“We were mainly trying to climb the mountain,” Ozturk said assertively in an interview. “Conrad was so driven, that definitely as my mentor, I don’t want to let him down or ever slow down the actual process of climbing.”
Direct interviews with Jon Krakauer (author of “Into The Wild”); Chin’s sister, Grace; Anker’s Wife, Jenni; and Ozturk’s girlfriend, Amee, all allow for emotional attachments to be made between the viewers and the mountaineers on the screen in front of them. Simultaneously, these direct interviews ground the stars in the real human world. They become relatable people who are traveling on an incredible journey.
“You don’t realize how good of a climber he is because you get distracted by the art,” Krakauer says in one interview speaking about Jimmy Chin. “But taking pictures makes the climbing way harder.” Much of the footage comes straight from Chin’s helmet as he climbs Meru: combining sport, danger, art, and the often disheartening reality of his situation.
At the heart of “Meru” is time-lapse footage following clouds at incredibly high altitudes, GoPro cameras capturing avalanches, and picturesque snapshots of what it would feel like to be directly next to some of the best climbers in the world. At the least, “Meru” succeeds in evoking wanderlust within viewers. But the filmmakers clearly understood that the tone of a documentary isn’t entirely established by epic visuals and pretty illustrations.
“If there was a behind-the-scenes shot of Jimmy [Chin] crying as he’s holding the camera because he thinks I’m gonna die,” Ozturk said, “that would give it more of a frame of reference. People would understand how those moments happen between friends.”
Through Chin’s GoPro strategy, “Meru” challenges a re-enactment model that has been created with fictional films; this makes his documentary supremely unique. The film demolishes barriers which have previously kept extreme documentaries from being created.
During films which re-enact, rather than record, viewers experience a feeling of removal from the true story expressed within the film. In Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours,” viewers feel real-life mountaineer Aron Ralston’s agony as he (spoiler alert) cuts his arm off with a dull knife after he finds himself trapped.
But simultaneously, a barrier exists between Aron Ralston and the audience; Aron Ralston does not star in the film; he is instead played by James Franco. The problem here is that Franco stands as a blockade. An actor playing another person is a way of signaling to viewers that they are watching an adaptation, a biographical survival drama: They are watching fiction produced from reality.
“Meru” conversely proves to be reality produced from fiction. The film acts as a portal between viewers and the climbers; there is no barrier to hide what is truly happening within the film, as the mountaineers tackle “the anti-Everest, with no support team to back you up,” as Ozturk put it. The concept of real human bodies physically making it up the toughest part of Mount Meru sounds like utter fantasy, but once proven feasible, this fantastical concept becomes truth.
There is no lack of conflict, risk, and passion flowing out of this film. After the climbers’ first unsuccessful journey up Meru all together in 2008, anxiety and disappointment strike when even Anker, the veteran climber of the bunch, begins to wonder if they will ever succeed in making the impossible climb possible.
His concern is eased in October 2011, when his team ultimately becomes the first people to ever summit Mount Meru. For Ozturk, the threshold has been raised for what he knows he can endure if he puts his mind to it. For the three men, the ultimate success has been made: Meru has been tackled, and a great film has arisen from said adventure in the process.
The verdict: “Meru” is on an entirely different plane of filmmaking; it is unprecedented in the techniques used to make it, along with the journey it projects.
Reach writer Rebecca Gross at arts@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @becsgross
