This repetitive essay from Australian documentarian Jennifer Peedom (of Mount Everest avalanche doc Sherpa fame) is an ode to “the siren song of the summit”. Using Vivaldi, Beethoven and Arvo Pärt, along with excerpts from Robert Macfarlane’s 2003 memoir Mountains of the Mind as narration, the film is voiced, bizarrely, by Willem Dafoe (his mollifying baritone works well with the material, though his connection to it remains a mystery). His voiceover accompanies drone footage of miniature mountaineers scaling sheer cliff faces and craggy, snow-capped peaks shrouded in mist, compiled from footage shot in 15 different countries. As a mood piece, it’s soothing and occasionally transportive, though its individual parts are mostly indistinct, coming together to form a vague thesis hinged on lofty platitudes such as “mountains restore our wonder and challenge our arrogance”.
