UKC

The adverts look great. Did anyone get a copy for Christmas ?
What did you think, is it worth buying ?

In reply to robdan:

Ahhh funny you should mention it

I saw it as part of the "Best of Kendal Mountain Film Festival" compilation on the Big Screen.
I recalled that somebody who'd seen it at Kendal had posted a review on here, and when I saw the film, I found myself agreeing with EVERY point that was made in that review, and thought "oh, no need for me to type anything in, I'll just either bump or link the original review".
I was unable to find it in a search.
It was a negative review.
I cry "conspiracy" (it being an Al Lee film and all that...)

FWIW, in brief, I thought that overall it was a weak film. Great CLIMBING project, and hats off to all involved, and Leo comes across very well in it, but as a film it was twice as long as it needed to be, and very unfocused as a documentary. I appreciate that the conditions were not ideally conducive to making a tight 80 minute film, but I think a great 45 minute film could have been made. It needed better explanation of aid climbing and what it means to free an aid route, this could easily have been done with simple captions. A little explanation of how Al and Dan got above the routes to film the attempts to free them, would have been good (presumable aiding/dogging/hauling).

Hah that was meant to be brief.

It's worth watching but I don't think it's worth owning, unless you are a real climbing-porn-kollektor-skum-geek.

If you have only £20 and want just one climbing DVD, get "The Sharp End"

In reply to robdan:

These vanishing posts are really weird: I remember the original, too. No sign of it anywhere...

I saw the film at KMFF and thought it had a great narrative: i.e. compelling story moving the viewer along and throwing in some amazing stunts and fantastic camera work which keep you watching. About two-thirds of the way into the film is some incredible footage of the Northern Lights above the Asgard towers, which must have been hell to film all night in those conditions.

The filmed climbing really only covers what looks like two pitches of the whole climb: someone will correct me if I'm wrong. The most gripping of the two I thought was where Leary goes for one of the crux pitches. You get real sense of what's going on in Leary's head while he's swearing up a finger-nail thin crack. Leo Houlding does his usual adrenalin-junkie thing; whereas Leary looks like a psychopath with a death wish.

There are nice bits of Al Lee humour throughout the build-up phase of the film (eg "Manliest man"), which gives a refreshing change from the over-the-top voice-overs you get in some comparable US films.

There are some odd weaknesses in the film, which may have been down to the timescales involved in getting it to screen, I guess. The Spanish climber who partners Leo throughout the Riglos climbs, for some reason doesn't set foot on the Asgard climb. There's no explanation really given. There are odd continuity mistakes (if they matter to you) as in: the rope in one pitch seems to amazingly change colour. They don't detract from the overall narrative, and maybe would have been sorted by longer edit, I guess.

It's a departure from Al Lee's recent films in that it's more of an "expedition" film; not a film about a climb (eg "Gerty Berwick" on "Grit Flick"); or a climber (eg Dave Birkett "Set in Stone"). It seems to be a progression from his earlier film "Twice upon a time in Bolivia," but with umpteen-times the production values (and costs, I guess.)

Overall, I enjoyed the film as a great adventure-expedition story, rather than as great climbing footage. Non-climbers who have endured hours of other climbing films with me thought it was excellent.

In reply to JollyGreen:

Your post is fairer than mine, I was being a bit harsh (that said, I was kind enough to omit the mysterious disappearing Carlos! )
Which one was Leary? I remember Stanley, I thought his surname was Weathers?

Aside from the film itself, some aspects of the actual expedition left me a bit cold e.g. parachuting in just to save the walk-in (I appreciate they wanted to conserve some energy for the attempt to free the route, but it came across as a bit gung-ho "whoah dude". Then a bunch of them had to walk all the way back and return anyway, and I might have liked to have seen their thoughts about this on film...

In reply to robdan: just watched it thought it was good. with all the difficulties involved with filming on a big wall without the benefits of abbing off the top to do the rigging, i thought it was a great effort, not as polished as some of the american films, but typically british and very entertaining.

In reply to JollyGreen:

I've noticed that a few post have gone missing and I think it's cause the mods think that they should be premier posts as they're advertising something. Even when they're just normal UKC posters talking about a new book/film etc.


His name's Carlos Suárez and I'm fairly sure he didn't attempt the climb because he'd just found out his girlfriend/or some other relative had died. Could be wrong, but I'm sure I've read that elsewhere.

In reply to mattrm:



Perhaps they could simply have stated in the film that Carlos had had to leave the expedition at short notice - wouldn't have given anything personal away surely? Though perhaps Carlos requested that his departure not be commented upon. Again, the edit leaves something to be desired here - Leo starts the film by raving on about how Carlos is THE partner for this expedition.

Anyway. It's a far better climbing film than I could make, so perhaps I should just praise it to high heaven

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I thought Carlos didn't climb because the language barrier was getting in the way and he didn't feel he had enough banter with the rest of the team? I'm sure I saw that on the film, maybe it's in the extras? I think there is a bit on the menu called 'what happened to Carlos?'

In reply to robdan:
Great movie. We saw it in Dublin (sponsored by Patagonia) three weeks ago. Definitely worth to spend 15E.

In reply to aquarius1973: agree, thought the landscape was stunning and it made an interesting change to see a dvd that focussed on a single big project in a wild and remote location rather than the usual collection of shorter routes.

In reply to mattrm:

Carlos never actually "left" the expedition, he stayed at the base camp whilst the others were up on the wall.

As someone else said, he didn't climb with the other guys because he felt a bit left out because of the language barrier. This is something very common amongst Spaniards as they tend to "bond" a lot more with one another than Brits would.

In reply to Blue Straggler: Thanks everyone, appreciate you sharing your views. Cheers