A beautifully animated French drama that focuses on the nuts and bolts of mountain scaling as a Japanese photojournalist hopes to find historical and existential clarity about the exploits of several mountain climbers.
Review #2,905
Dir. Patrick Imbert
2021 | France | Animation, Drama, Adventure | 95min | 1.85:1 | French
PG13 (Netflix rating) for thematic content, peril, some language, unsettling images and smoking
Cast: Éric Herson-Macarel, Damien Boisseau, Elisabeth Ventura
Plot: A photojournalist’s obsessive quest for the truth about the first expedition to Mt. Everest leads him to search for an esteemed climber who went missing.
Awards: Official Selection (Cannes)
International Sales: Wild Bunch
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Mountain Climbing; Dreams & Ambition
Narrative Style: Straightforward
Pace: Normal
Audience Type: Slightly Mainstream
Viewed: Netflix
Spoilers: No
In my Netflix shortlist for some time, The Summit of the Gods is a beautifully animated drama about a Japanese photojournalist in search of clarity over an early climbing expedition to Mount Everest, decades before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay successfully scaled it for the first time in 1953.
Based on a manga, Summit is, however, a French production, so these Japanese characters speak French throughout, which is one of those weird creative decisions related to the choice of language. As the story unfolds, the ‘distraction’ of French slowly makes way for the ‘attraction’ of mountain climbing.
Credit to director Patrick Imbert (his first solo directing feature after 2017’s The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales) and his team of animators for paying close attention to the nuts and bolts of scaling the seemingly insurmountable peaks.
At once operating like a mystery—the aforesaid photojournalist must also find an elusive Japanese climber with connections to evidence that might help him locate the truth of that early expedition—and also a spiritual journey in search of existential meaning, Summit works best when it is free of dialogue and plotting, focusing simply on the gruelling and dangerous trek upwards to the heavens.
“For some, the mountains aren’t a goal, but a path.”
To dream of transcendence and grace at the summit is to overcome physical limits and the occasional bad luck. There is a real sense of threat in the way the film is animated and edited, even if it is spun occasionally by broad swirls of surreal imagery.
Some of the most suspenseful moments involve characters literally at wits’ end, as a single safety rope temporarily freezes the time between ascent and death.
While the storytelling doesn’t quite prove to be ultimately rewarding in that it meets expectations and thus offers nothing more than a familiar narrative about courage, sacrifice and determination, what makes Summit interesting isn’t so much about the how and why of climbing, but for whom do we climb for?
Grade: B
Trailer:
Music:
Eternality Tan 