Red-Barracuda This early documentary chronicles a British funded expedition aimed at climbing the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest, for the very first time. More specifically, this was the famous doomed expedition of 1924 where George Mallory and Andrew Irvine lost their lives somewhere just short of the summit. It remains unknown if they ever made it to the top. Mallory's body was found over seventy years later in 1999, Irvine's body has never been found, his ultimate location remaining an enduring mystery.This is one of those documentaries that you know in advance is going to end in a very bad way. The fate of the climbers is so well documented and was such big news at the time that the vast majority of people approaching this film will be only too aware of the downbeat nature this expedition ended on. The footage was taken by Captain John Noel with a hand cranked camera, which I am sure was a fairly bulky device, making it all the more impressive that this footage was shot at all considering that this heavy equipment would have to have been heaved so far up this most imposing mountain. Much of the climbing material was, by necessity, taken on a long range lens and is consequently quite limited; yet the long distance we see the climbers from gives the imagery a slightly haunting perspective. Nevertheless, there is a considerable amount of stunning photography of mountain vistas and, in general, it captures a feel of what the men saw there. In addition to this, there is some very valuable material captured of the isolated Tibetan people who live in the shadow of Everest. This was the first time they had been captured on film and so this is very nice time-capsule stuff. In fact, most of the smaller more personal details captured in the film are moments from the lives of these people, with actually very little of the climbers themselves. This is a shame, especially considering that this would be the final testament to Mallory and Irvine.As was probably unavoidable for a silent documentary it relies fairly heavily on title cards to convey information. But this is kind of what you would expect, nevertheless, it doesn't detract too much and the content generally is fascinating. Visually it has been beautifully restored by the BFI so that the imagery with its expressionistic colour tints can be appreciated in all their glory. Also pleasingly, a modern score has been composed too. For me, this is always a welcome addition to a silent film and in this case it is no different. It's a subtle minimalistic soundtrack with some live sounds added too for extra atmosphere and ambiance. On the whole, this is a very good bit of restoration work on a very fine old documentary. This is the kind of historical adventure that deserves to have some kind of visual documentation and even though we know it has a sad conclusion; it's beautiful in many ways.

Douglas Skinner The other reviews of this wonderful film will give the reader more than enough motivation to watch it himself. I would like to add the point, however, that Mallory & Co. did not consider themselves to be personally superior to the natives. The film expresses a lot of respect for these hearty and isolated people, including praises for their unremitting cheerfulness towards their work. Such praises have been a part of the history of Everest exploration since that time. The Tibetan and Nepalese quite admirable. However it is probably true that Mallory and Irvine did believe they came from a more advanced society and I think that too is indisputable.We are so steeped in cultural relativism that we fail to make this distinction. It is a distinction that the natives themselves have made; as over the decades they have adopted as many innovations as have been introduced to their country. After seeing many films of Everest explorations I suspect that they have less nostalgia about their "old ways" and modes of living than many Westerners--steeped in romantic notions about the purity indigenous peoples--believe.

l_rawjalaurence Newly restored by the British Film Institute with a specially-composed score, THE EPIC OF EVEREST recounts the failed attempt to scale Mount Everest by Mallory, Irvine and their cohorts. Dating from 1924, the film offers a fascinating insight into attitudes at that time. It begins with a description of arriving in Tibet, and the filmmakers' impressions of the locals; there is a combination of strangeness and colonialism that seems typical of Britain and its people at that time. They considered themselves at once superior to yet somehow inhibited by the presence of different ways of life. As the action unfolds, however, so the tone changes, as the members of the expedition discover just how difficult the task of conquering Everest actually is. Judging from the film, their equipment was rudimentary, to say the least; the mountaineers' outfits of puttees and parkas seems more suited to the Scottish Highlands rather than the Himalayas. In the end the two brave mountaineers who made an assault on the Everest's peak fail to return: the film concludes that perhaps they were thwarted not so much by their own hubris, but by the presence of Everest itself, that resisted any attempt at colonization. This is a fascinating conclusion, perhaps suggesting a gradual dawning in the filmmakers' minds that territories (and peoples) do not automatically submit themselves to imperialist rule. Some of the photography is simply breathtaking, given the equipment available at that time. THE EPIC OF EVEREST is well worth watching as a period-piece as well as an insight into mid-Twenties attitudes and how they could be re-evaluated.

Igenlode Wordsmith It was interesting to see this film immediately after Captain Noel's first Everest documentary, the optimistically-entitled "Climbing Mount Everest" covering the 1922 attempt on the mountain. The degree of public interest in the earlier film had prompted Noel into the venture of buying the commercial rights to the film of this new expedition outright, raising the amazing sum of eight thousand pounds in advance; effectively, "The Epic of Everest" financed the 1924 summit bid.The difference between the two approaches to the same subject is notable. This film runs half an hour longer than its predecessor, but if anything feels shorter: it is constructed as an artistic whole, whereas the first attempt relies much more on the sheer novelty of its subject matter -- both Tibet and the mountain were being filmed for the first time ever -- and in consequence has a certain random "what I did on my holidays" feel to it. On the other hand, it's certainly worth seeing as a companion piece, not least because it explains some of the background detail that appears in "The Epic of Everest": the prayer wheel that we see here, for example, which is otherwise implied to be a musical instrument of some kind. And at least one shot (of Tibetans dancing) has clearly been inserted directly into this film from the 1922 version!For the "Epic of Everest" Noel makes an attempt to create human interest, introducing individuals and showing us clips of Somervell sketching, Geoffrey Bruce at the typewriter, and Sandy Irvine swinging a thermometer(?): the tale of a newborn donkey provides another minor strand. To modern eyes I think the film would have benefited from more such material, especially given the practical difficulties of filming actual mountaineering (almost all the climbing footage had to be shot via telephoto lens at extreme long range) and the requirement for the photographic party to wait around in camp below to learn the results of each fresh summit bid: shots of camp life on a more human level would have helped bring the realities of the expedition home. As it is, we get little beyond a couple of scenes of the expedition members gathered at table in the open air, and learn nothing of, for example, the relay system of runners that dispatched Noel's precious negatives all the way back to Darjeeling for developing. An even more puzzling omission is the absence in this film of any coverage of the oxygen system eventually used by Mallory, a precursor of which is seen on Finch and Bruce in the 1922 footage. And because -- presumably -- it was impossible to film in anything other than the most perfect of conditions, we get very little idea of the savagery of Everest's weather, which constantly frustrated the climbers' attempts. Only the billowing of the little Meade tents on the North Col gives any hint as to the conditions that entrapped four porters (and almost exhausted both Mallory and Somervell in a rescue expedition before ever they could make their respective bids for the summit).But this film is conceived on a more elevated level, with sweeping tinted shots of the mountain and its approaches, the vast bulk of the north-eastern ridge above the cameraman, and the vertical precipices that await the climber who slips. To those familiar with the still photographs of the expedition, perhaps the greatest magic is to see those familiar scenes come alive: to see porters on Irvine's famous tent-peg rope ladder, to see climbers turn and grin at the camera, to see Norton and Somervell's stumbling, blind return from 28,000ft. Perhaps most memorable (and rightly selected by the BFI for their trailer) are those shots of the Himalayan sunset creeping across the folds of the mountain and finally extinguishing the highest peak: both art and metaphor.In an similarly elevated tone are the intertitles -- although by the standards of silent drama/action films it can be very intertitle-heavy. If only the voice-over had existed for documentaries in 1924...I was sceptical about the idea of the modern score composed for the film's re-release, but in fact I found that it worked very well. The use of 'found sounds' and natural noise goes some way to substitute for the lack of soundtrack, introducing heavy breathing and harsh winds to restore some idea of the sheer labour involved in those little black dots moving over pristine white, and providing ambient sounds for a Tibetan yak herd or Darjeeling bazaar, while it includes Captain Noel's own recordings of the Tibetan lamas who performed at the film's original London premiere.Inevitably "The Epic of Everest" is constrained by the technical challenges of filming under extreme conditions -- I wondered also if the relative lack of human-interest footage was dictated by a limited supply of film stock -- and while Captain Noel greatly admired Herbert Ponting's pre-WW1 Antarctic achievements, despite technical advances I'm not sure he reaches the same artistic heights. Ponting's "The Great White Silence" is another film that began as a documentary and had to be re-edited into a memorial to a Great British Failure, and as such is an obvious point of comparison: but it contains some shots of truly jaw-dropping beauty. With the difficulties of altitude and long distance added to that of intense cold, the interest of Noel's film lies to a greater extent in its record of a historic event. I like this score better, though!For anyone with an interest in the 1920s Everest expeditions it is certainly worth going to see "The Epic of Everest" during its general release; for the more curious, "Climbing Mount Everest" is also available to watch in person via the BFI's Mediatheque screens at various locations around the country.