Accomplished filmmaking duo Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin hit the big time in 2018 when Free Solo became the year’s most talked about documentary, culminating in a 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Since then they’ve become prolific, directing six feature documentaries, the biopic Nyad, and three television series. Everest: The Other Side marks their latest adventure – another high-stakes story of human endurance as their mountaineer friends Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson attempt to become the first people to summit and ski down the notoriously treacherous north side of Mount Everest. It’s certainly familiar ground for the filmmakers who have made the world of extreme sports their cinematic domain, but a lack of critical inquiry into the subject matter suggests that Vasarhelyi and Chin might be too close to the topic to present a worthwhile film around it.
Morrison and Nelson recall the early days of their relationship with a misty-eyed romanticism; when they first met, Nelson’s marriage was on the verge of breaking down, her extreme passion for mountaineering not quite shared by her then-husband. Together they begin to plan their dream trip to Everest, despite Hilaree’s youngest son expressing his constant worry that his mother will one day embark on a trip she won’t return from. This grim foreshadowing comes only slightly before Nelson is killed by an avalanche during a training trip in Nepal; the footage of the incident and recovery of her body is shown in the film.
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While heartbroken by his partner’s death, Morrison ultimately decides to resume preparations for the Everest trip, assuring the audience (and perhaps himself) it’s what Hilaree would have wanted. Late in the film it’s revealed that Morrison has endured substantially more grief due to another accident years earlier, and perhaps his obsession with extreme danger is the result, but any psychological component of the journey is eschewed in favour of spectacle. A first attempt is foiled after one of the Nepalese sherpas – whom are responsible for most of the heavy lifting on Everest expeditions – breaks his leg in another avalanche and bad weather buries their camps. This incident hints at the well-documented exploitation of sherpa labour on Everest (“We don’t have to always do what this foreigner says,” another sherpa comments when there’s an argument about turning back) but Vasarhelyi and Chin’s film is not interested in interrogating the myriad ethical problems that Everest presents.
Instead the documentary positions Morrison’s mission as a quasi-religious calling; something he is compelled to do despite the fact it has already killed the person he was closest to. But it’s not as if Morrison is alone in his obsession; Chin will be making the ascent with him. An irritated Vasarhelyi lists the names of all their friends who have died on expeditions to her husband, who seems only momentarily sobered by the thought. Ultimately the film positions the mission as worth the risk, suggesting that a sense of personal achievement is a worthy endeavour even when it means potentially leaving children to grow up without a parent. Even if a climber does survive, the impact of their parent’s chosen hobby is still potent; Chin’s young daughter points out that in leaving to undertake the Everest trip, he’s missing her birthday (again) as well as her first day of school. In Free Solo, Alex Honnold’s pathological obsession with death-defying acts had a notable impact on his girlfriend, but the stakes are even higher when there are children involved. It’s hard to understand why glory is deemed worth the psychological impact on others, or to see these actions as anything other than selfish and irresponsible.
Although Vasarhelyi and Chin have an eye for assembling a compelling narrative and picking the most suspenseful footage shot by the cinematographers who made the trek with Morrison, it’s difficult to reconcile the the austere majesty of the mountain itself with the ugly truth: Morrison and Nelson’s undertaking was a selfish pursuit which put personal achievement ahead of their own lives and those of their families, ultimately leaving two children to grow up without their mother. It’s strange to see this aspect of Free Solo – that is, the impact of an extreme danger obsession on the individual’s loved ones – rehashed not even a decade later, particularly with no fresh insights provided. Instead the filmmakers would very much like us to focus on the pure spectacle of human achievement, rather than the price that others have to pay for individual greatness.
