I can tell that like many other early reviewers of this movie; I already knew most of the story by heart.
Having watched many of the early documentaries of the '96 disaster, and having read multiple of the written accounts from the survivors, including Krakauers book several times; watching this movie, I can't help the feeling that there is so much we are not shown
Any disaster is always the result of a series of unfortunate events or decisions, and following '96 there have been so many conclusions to why this one in particular unfolded so violently.
The decision of trying to drag Sandy Pittman to the top, even though she should have been told to go back long before; this decision was resulted partly in the missing ropes near the Hillary step; and hence the long line who kept everybody else up the for far too long a short scene shows Pittman being dragged up the mountain by one of the Sherpas, but the movie never explains anything about it, nor does it try to explain why this is a very bad idea.
It is shortly mentioned that Anatoli Boukreev does not wish to use bottled oxygen while guiding on the mountain, today this would actually be illegal, but back in'96 it was just not well seen. Because of oxygen deprivation Boukreev has to leave the summit fairly quick, and hence abandons his clients there. In the movie he is (fair enough) depicted as an hero, since he alone rescued multiple people. But if you think about it, a number of these people might not have been in need of saving, if Boukreev had just stayed with them in the first place.
The movie does actually use an amount of time to show the large number of climbers on the mountain, and how this were actually creating "traffic jams" up there, this was an extremely contributing factor to the chaos that happened.
Don't get me wrong, I like the movie it's well directed and shot, the views are wonderful and breathtaking, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for the production crew to actually shoot most of the movie on the mountain I would just have liked it to have a 45-60min longer runtime, so it could more accurately tell the many aspects of the story.
Having watched many of the early documentaries of the '96 disaster, and having read multiple of the written accounts from the survivors, including Krakauers book several times; watching this movie, I can't help the feeling that there is so much we are not shown
Any disaster is always the result of a series of unfortunate events or decisions, and following '96 there have been so many conclusions to why this one in particular unfolded so violently.
The decision of trying to drag Sandy Pittman to the top, even though she should have been told to go back long before; this decision was resulted partly in the missing ropes near the Hillary step; and hence the long line who kept everybody else up the for far too long a short scene shows Pittman being dragged up the mountain by one of the Sherpas, but the movie never explains anything about it, nor does it try to explain why this is a very bad idea.
It is shortly mentioned that Anatoli Boukreev does not wish to use bottled oxygen while guiding on the mountain, today this would actually be illegal, but back in'96 it was just not well seen. Because of oxygen deprivation Boukreev has to leave the summit fairly quick, and hence abandons his clients there. In the movie he is (fair enough) depicted as an hero, since he alone rescued multiple people. But if you think about it, a number of these people might not have been in need of saving, if Boukreev had just stayed with them in the first place.
The movie does actually use an amount of time to show the large number of climbers on the mountain, and how this were actually creating "traffic jams" up there, this was an extremely contributing factor to the chaos that happened.
Don't get me wrong, I like the movie it's well directed and shot, the views are wonderful and breathtaking, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for the production crew to actually shoot most of the movie on the mountain I would just have liked it to have a 45-60min longer runtime, so it could more accurately tell the many aspects of the story.