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Review

A star rating of 3 out of 5.

Despite providing an invaluable record of the doomed 1924 bid to climb the world's highest mountain, as well as containing the first footage ever filmed of daily life in Tibet, Captain John Noel's pioneering documentary lacks the intimacy and immediacy of Frank Hurley's South (1919) and Herbert G Ponting's The Great White Silence (1924). Perhaps this is because lost climbers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine are less iconic than polar explorers Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott. But, even though Noel uses the latest long-distance lenses to capture deeds occurring miles away, his failure to introduce the expedition members keeps the audience at a distance and somehow diminishes the heroism of their sacrifice. There is also something patronising about the scenes involving indigenous people, which drew the ire of the Maharaja of Sikkim and the 13th Dalai Lama. So, while this is an exceptional technical achievement and Noel makes atmospheric use of blue and red tints, this worthy tribute fails to stir the soul as much it should.

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Credits

Cast

rolename
Andrew IrvineAndrew Irvine (1)
George MalloryGeorge Mallory

Crew

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DirectorJ B L Noel

Details

Theatrical distributor
BFI
Released on
2013-10-18
Languages
English
Available on
DVD and Blu-ray
Formats
Colour
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