K2
A film review by Eugene Miya
[This review must remain in the public domain.]
I had not planned on reviewing this film until a storm of more or less uninformed material appeared.
What is K2? K2 is the well-known American ski company. It is also the second highest mountain in the world. K2 holds a special place in the history of American climbing: the Americans tried to climb K2 while the British attempted Everest (still higher than K2 despite recent surveys documented by Brad Washburn [Boston Science Museum] and Nova). Although K2 is second in height, K2 is considerably more technically challenging than most Everest routes. K2 has taken its share of lives prior and following its ascent by the Italians.
The film K2 based on a one-act play by a Stanford grad about a soul-searching bivouac on an open ledge. Two climbers, buddies with opposite personalities: one a competitive, emotional, hard-bitten lawyer; the other an injured, more meticulous scientist. The set usually consisted of a rappel down to a "ledge" where the evening was spent including an avalanche which buried or destroyed what remaining gear they had. It wasn't an action play. In the morning, the climber(s) continue on.
Remember this was a play in development, variations occur. The performance I saw had the author (noted in the credits and the screenplay) as one of the climbers. We had an audience discussion session following our performance. The author is a boulderer who lost a friend in the Tetons (the play was a Teton Group Production and I wish I had kept a poster). I was not highly impressed with the play: I felt it was a bit contrived and the personalities were thin. This is not a reason to deter me from seeing the film.
The plot of the film is similar: two buddies in a city, nothing strange about that until one builders (climbs up the outside of a building) up to an apartment. We next see them on a climb where they encounter another party. They briefly interact when an avalanche kills two members of the second party. The other party was planning an ascent of K2 (one older climber is the sugar-daddy). The rest of the film is about the buddies muscling their way onto the expedition and getting up the mountain.
It's kind of a macho film. Climbers have rather strong personalities and one-dimensional personalities (ambitions). You kind of need this to get up peaks of this size. It makes for great arguments at high altitude. The ambitions of each character reflect on the different lives of the two climbers.
The main problem with the film is the sense of time and continuity. The story is straight-line. Consider viewing climbers who are one moment in shadow and one moment in bright sun. Not a cloud in the sky [note this did not stop director Philip Kaufman and THE RIGHT STUFF.] Sure. There are numerous other "errors:" e.g., the expedition is supposed to start in Seattle (it's Vancouver, BC; if you have been there, you can recognize the skyline and the lack of a Space-Needle). So you have to suspend your disbelief a little more than most films.
These are minor, really trivial nit-picking. The mountain actually filmed is Mt. Waddington, a serious peak by any standard. It makes a respectable, difficult peak. There is *one* picture of the *real* K2 if you know when to look, not fair to the non-climber. Some of the filming did occur in Pakistan, a very dry nation set back from the Indian Ocean. This was very well captured. But if you look carefully down canyon you can see a frozen lake and trees. You don't find forests like this in Pakistan. You don't typically need ladders to bridge crevices into K2: this is borrowed from Everest expeditions after the 1970 Japanese Climbing and Skiing expedition with one particularly memorable film shot across a ladder bridge. We see numerous camps throughout the film. The tents never rattled enough in high winds, but if they did, the audience would never be able to hear what the climbers were saying.
The film has moments borrowed from the American literature on K2 and other climbing accounts. A scene involving the solution of a porter dispute came straight from the 1975 American attempt. A late-night evacuation was similar to a 1953 American story which went into history. This adds a bit to the realism. Unfortunately the time compression creeps in (you don't walk nearly as fast at that elevation as they show in the film). Yeah, some dumb looking soloing (contrary to most expedition technique), numerous dramatic falls and arrests--far too many. It is nearly impossible to capture the internal intensity which drives climbers on peaks like K2.
Time is the climber's single most important resource. Big peak climbers usually start before dawn, not conducive to filming or storyline or views. A motion picture can't capture this time scale and the film suffers a little for it. Sure, the plot is predictable, because the storyline is very linear. The usual expedition personality conflicts take place. The bivouac on which the play is based barely lasts a minute. I timed it. Don't blink.
But there are bright moments for the viewing climber: an early scene takes a step back from a perfect hand crack on a beautiful granite buttress (completely in the shade, by the way). Only a climber can appreciate this. In comparison to the play which occurs on a ledge, the soul-searching takes place over three or four camps on different climbs. I believe this actually makes the film a little better structured and more realistic.
The film's use of oxygen and adrenaline is a joke. The film is a bit on the melodramatic side, probably necessary because real climbing as a filming activity is *really dull*. I mean slow, meticious, *dull*. Believe me, I know--I've done it 22 years now and it only really interests its own collection of "odd-balls." So I really doubt this film will last long in the theaters. Americans are not climbers and outdoors people to the level of the Alpine nations. Americans are arm-chair Monday night football fans (and baseball, and basketball) fans. A few are arm-chair climbers. Clearly, K2 is better known as a ski company than a peak in the US.
The talents of Patricia Charbonney (sp?), a fine, very attractive, up-and-coming actress are wasted. She plays a "climber" with some limited basis in fact who in reality caused some friction on a couple of real K2 expeditions. She is not nearly as obnoxious in this film and a dynamic is missed. The film could have also explored the personality of Michael Biehn's character from the training in his office.
The film is dedicated to Jim Wickwire who did reach the summit of K2 in 1978 (with Lou Reichart (sp?)) and survived a solo bivouac and participated in a 1975 attempt. Jim Wickwire was a consultant to the film along with numerous Canadian climbs including Pat Morrow (second ascender of all continental high points). Another useful technique missing in this film is showing where K2 is. George Lucas' films make excellent geographic use of maps.
The SJ Mercury gave it 3 stars. Far too high. Their review pointed out that there were no close up face shots, a good point. The perspective is always with some distance. The NY Times panned it (that's up to the people at nyt.com). The film is not among the worse films to portray climbing: bad films (with a few decent climbing scenes) like THE EIGER SANCTION [the "Plan 9" of climbing films] or FIVE DAYS ONE SUMMER. I can't recommend a film like K2 at today's ticket prices. It will probably show better on a big screen than a little screen, so if you are interested, this is a weak thumbs-up, so see it at a matinee. $6.75? Well, hard to justify. It is not the ultimate high. Me? I'd rather go climbing, but every climber I've talked to stood around thinking about what they saw. It is mildly interesting and better than the play.
I have a few other thoughts. Not worth putting in, this review is too long as it is.
--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov Resident Cynic, Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene .
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