The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest Blu-ray delivers stunning video and audio in this exceptional Blu-ray release
In 1999, renowned American mountaineer Conrad Anker found the body of George Mallory high in Mount Everest's "death zone." Anker's life became intertwined with Mallory' story. Haunted by Mallory's story, Anker returned to Everest to lay Mallory's ghost to rest.
The long unsolved mystery of what happened to aviatrix Amelia Earhart has been in the news once again lately, as bone fragments and other tantalizing clues have been found on Gardner Island. Part of what probably fuels the continuing fascination with Earhart is that no one knows for certain what happened to pioneering female pilot. But years before Earhart disappeared another vanishing of a world renowned explorer and adventurer made world headlines, though for some reason his disappearance never really became the stuff of legend that Earhart's did. Perhaps that's because researchers had at least some idea of what happened to George Herbert Leigh Mallory in early June of 1924. Mallory had embarked on the first attempt to scale the impossibly high peak of Mt. Everest, and when he perished without a trace, literally vanishing into a cloud, it was a foregone conclusion that the mountaineer had simply met his fate somewhere on the northeast ridge of Everest. But lingering questions remained? Where was Mallory's body, as well as that of his partner Andrew "Sandy" Irvine? And had the pair actually managed to scale the summit before they died? At least one of those questions was answered in 1999 when the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition discovered the frozen remains of the climber, preserved in remarkably intact condition due to Everest's icy climate. But had Mallory and Irvine actually managed to reach the summit before their deaths, and what actually caused the pair to be killed? These two issues are more conjectural in nature, but the entire mystery and its many attendant theories make for the absolutely fascinating documentary The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest.
The remains of George Mallory as they were discovered in 1999.
Mallory famously answered the perhaps impertinent question of why he was obsessed with climbing Mt. Everest with the iconic statement, "Because it's there." The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest might be seen as slightly twisting that idea, at least in terms of the genesis of the project, to state "Because he's there," for the enduring mystery of what happened to Mallory has at the very least haunted those who have followed in his mountain climbing wake. As long ago as the mid-1970's reports had surfaced that a body had been found on the side of Everest's imposing peak, but not until the late 1990's was an actual systematic exploration set up to find and catalog whatever was up there. The Wildest Dream employs a compelling bifurcated approach to its subject, recreating Mallory's original ascent while ping ponging to both the discovery of his body as well as the 1999 team's attempts to revisit Mallory's approach to see if he could have indeed managed to reach the summit before his demise. The most compelling piece of admittedly circumstantial evidence that Mallory may have indeed reached the summit was the absence of a photograph of Mallory's wife Ruth on his remains, remains which were remarkably intact, including a fairly undamaged wallet and other personal effects. Mallory had carried the photograph of Ruth with him almost religiously, vowing to place it on the summit when he reached it.
What is it that causes some adventurous souls to leave their comfortable home lives behind them to attempt seemingly impossible feats? Does "because it's there" really provide any sort of meaningful answer, or does it simply point to the inarguable fact that some people will see a challenge's mere existence as motive enough to risk life and limb to overcome it. That daredevil spirit underlies a lot of The Wildest Dream, as modern day explorer Conrad Anker and his team not only find Mallory's body but then attempt to recreate Mallory's potential ascent to the mountain's summit. There's a very subtle subtext underneath the entire enterprise, as Anker walks (or climbs) a mile in Mallory's figurative boots.
What also gives this documentary a perhaps unexpected personal edge is the recounting of Mallory's relationship with Ruth, a marriage which had the shadow of the world's highest mountain peak looming over it from virtually its first day. Ruth seems sadly consigned to the fact that Everest wove an almost hypnotic trance on her husband, one which drew him inexorably away from her and their children, despite his own qualms and reservations, on a quixotic quest that seemed not just ridiculous, but foolhardy and probably impossible. The sad foreknowledge of what actually happened to Mallory on Everest's ridge gives these sequences an undeniable emotional pull. Adding to the sadness is that Mallory and Ruth are voiced by Ralph Fiennes and the late Natasha Richardson, and Richardson's widower, Liam Neeson, is the overall narrator of the documentary.
This is a thrilling and viscerally exciting documentary because it works on so many levels. Historians will love the recreation of Mallory's initial attempt, as well as the personal information which is imparted through copious letters. Mystery lovers will be drawn to the twin enigmas of what happened to Mallory and whether or not he managed to make the summit. And adventure lovers of all kinds will thrill to the often awe inspiring photography this remarkable piece employs. Director Anthony Geffen offers one amazing shot of the frozen wastes of Everest after another and even vicarious climbing enthusiasts will have a pretty good idea of the incredible fortitude it takes to scale a peak of this immense grandeur and daunting complexity. That daunting factor only becomes more frightening when Anker decides that the only way to "prove," however circumstantially, that Mallory could have indeed made the summit, is to recreate Mallory's original climbing conditions. That means everything from now ancient modes of clothing and gear to, perhaps most frightening of all, the removal of a ladder bolted into place in 1975 by a Chinese expedition, to help ascend the so-called "Second Step," a sheer cliff face that was assumed to be insurmountable without the aid of a ladder.
What becomes patently obvious as The Wildest Dream breezes along is that the "dream" is still very much alive as embodied by modern day adventurers like Anker and his partner Leo Houlding, whose exploits provide one heart stopping sequence in the film. The film does well to focus on the daring-do of both Mallory and Anker, while keeping the more staid talking head sequences to a minimum. There are still at least a few lingering questions left by the end of The Wildest Dream, but that's perhaps as it should be. Mallory's legend is one of unanswered questions, and if those questions have tended to fade somewhat in the passing of many years, The Wildest Dream helps to excavate them once again for a new generation. The more lasting part of Mallory's legacy is that definitive answer he posited so long ago. When something is "there" like Mt. Everest, there will no doubt always be an unbowed soul there, too, with hopes of conquering it.
The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest debuts on Blu-ray courtesy of Virgil Films and National Geographic with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This feature was originally shown in IMAX, and as with so many of those huge screen enterprises, this documentary features some awe inspiring scenery, most of which is delivered faultlessly via this Blu-ray. Geffen differentiates the Mallory recreations with a sort of sepia-toned effect that is nicely reproduced here. Otherwise, colors are precise and well saturated, depth of field is nothing short of mind boggling and everything from the wispy uncertainty of clouds to the rock hard granite of mountain cliffs are shown with beautiful fine detail. There are some niggling complaints some will have with this transfer, not all of which can be attributed to the Blu-ray itself. First of all, there's a variety of source elements utilized in the documentary, and clarity and even condition vary considerably between segments. A lot of the extremely high altitude filming is plagued by something that's akin to watching waves of water (or I suspect in this case, air) pass over the image, making it seem like one of those old film devices where a character was "flashing back" to a long ago moment in time. More problematic, and no doubt part of this transfer, are some persistent shimmer and aliasing issues, notably on items like the closeknit caps of Anker and Houdling, which can never quite resolve correctly. Overall, though, this is nicely sharp and very well detailed release.
Two fairly bombastic lossless tracks are offered on this Blu-ray, a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix and an uncompressed stereo LPCM 2.0 mix. The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest falls victim to what I call "A&E Syndrome" by filling this soundtrack with virtually nonstop LFE and underscore, which actually works to the documentary's detriment. There is thrilling immersion here from virtually the first moment, as what sound like gale force winds whip through the surrounds and give a good aural approximation of what standing near the top of the world must sound like. But with crashing tympani and other low-end sound effects, it can be too much after a while and some listeners may prefer to 2.0 mix simply so as to not be assaulted by the surround system's over punctuated low frequencies. All of this said, fidelity is superb in both of these tracks, with finely detailed directionality and exquisite voice work, all well reproduced, by Neeson, Fiennes, Richardson and Alan Rickman.
Raw Interview Footage (SD; 1:36:26) offers unedited interviews with Geffen, Acker and Houlding which provide a wealth of additional background information on the 1999 discovery of Mallory, Mallory's life, and the attempt to recreate Mallory's last climb.
The Khumbu Climbing Centre (1080i; 8:34) is an interesting piece on a collective Anker helped found which seeks to increase safety among Nepalese climbers.
Original Notes from Mallory's Expedition Team Member Noel Odell is a text based supplement of notes Odell kept during the 1924 expedition.
The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest is documentary filmmaking at its finest. Relentlessly compelling, with several historic and contemporary central characters to maintain interest, this piece combines elements of mystery, historical detective work, and literal cliffhanging in a superbly visceral manner. Why should you watch The Wildest Dream? Well, because it's there, of course. Highly recommended.
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