With "Mountain," director Jennifer Peedom has done for the mountaineering film what Marks & Spencer's did for food advertisements years ago: taken the concept and beautified it to such an extent that it provokes a visceral response. Salivating over the movie's visual perfection is the only appropriate reaction.
That being said, the film is not just about the visuals. The brainchild of Richard Tognetti, the artistic director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO), "Mountain" is as much an ode to classical music as it is to the peaks themselves, so much so that the opening frames are not of a Himalayan vista but of the orchestra gently tuning their instruments to concert A, bows at the ready.
"The ACO approached me to make this film," says Peedom. "I had just finished my feature-length film 'Sherpa' (2015) and was offered this creative opportunity. It was a chance to make a film in a completely different way, without the traditional tools of storytelling: characters and dialogue."