Climbing towad the unknown: Everest

Though I'm sorry I missed the 3D version in the theater, I enjoyed watching Beyond the Edge in 2D at home; it's not the first movie to take on the theme of Himalayan mountaineering, but it's probably one of the best. The movie, about Hillary's ascent of Everest in 1053, aptly blends archival film footage, voice-over narration (probably from historical archives I would think) of participants in the trek and their descendants, and re-created scenes using contemporary actors and up-to-date equipment and film technology - all to create a seamless documentary about the ascent that makes you wonder how or why anyone would try it in the first place: some harrowing scenes of crossing the ice field and climbing the last knife-edge ridge to the summit and a vivid sense of the daily suffering and misery on the trail and in the many base camp. Makes you appreciate not just Hillary and Tenzing's ascent but the others in the team as well, the poor Sherpa schleppers especially, climbing barefoot with huge crates balanced on their backs. The equipment was so primitive by today's standards. You have to imagine that today the path to the summit, by comparison, must be a superhighway - but in 1953 they weren't even sure if humans could survive at that 29K altitude, and many had died trying to get there. I know some of the reviews weren't that strong, as some were put off by the 3D hype and others probably jaded by a thousand NG specials on this and similar topics, but it's still a pretty thrilling movie that helped me see not what it's like to make an ascent today but when it was truly a climb toward the unknown.