Soon will reach its centennial, J.B.L. Noel's pioneering documentary of mountaineering is restored to its mint condition by the BFI National Archive, THE EPIC OF EVEREST is the official record of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine's fateful 1924 British Mount Everest expedition, and the sole fact of the film's own existence should be hailed and venerated as a tremendous cinematic triumph.
Unthinkable of bringing the entire film-making apparatus to the Everest region at its time, whose nature environs (with its rarefied altitude and gelid temperature) alone seriously challenge the preservation of film stocks, to say nothing of how the team can operate the actual filming process, THE EPIC OF EVEREST solemnly and preciously lifts a corner of the veil off the insurmountable Mount Everest to the eyes of its safely ensconced beholders (color-tinted magnificence evokes a particular otherworldliness which can perfect define the epithet "early filmic").....
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