I love this movie so much

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

I really can't say what I would rate this movie if there was better music because I couldn't even make it through more than 20 minutes.I don't dislike the music in the abstract itself, but to say it's the wrong music for the topic is an understatement. It's often frenetic and way too fast paced for what your watching and quickly becomes distracting and jarring.Be nice if the re-did the audio score, because it otherwise looked like it could have been good

Sorry, but I hated this. I managed to watch around half of it and only found it irritating so switched off. I'm not disputing the content itself-I didn't like the filming of it-the music, the narrative. Others will like it, just not for meWhen I watch a documantary or a piece of film, I want to be immersed in the 'feelings' of the people who live, climb, work, die.. From the danger, the excitement, disappointment, the cold, the wet and the humid, the tragic, the sick, the beauty and above all-understand what people are searching for.I felt nothing, I could have looked through a book for this. I didn't feel it captured anything and the score was, at best, annoying The narrative failed to interest me, it was just rambling As a reviewer commented on Amazon, if you want to see a film about mountains? Watch the restored 'The Epic of Everest' from the 1924 Mallory/Irvine expedition-that is one stunning, beautiful piece of film. Probably the best I've seenOkay-as an edit to respond to another review. Firstly-I'm the 'guy' who loves mountains(except I'm female) and this is how I felt. I didn't connect with this film at all. Others will. I've seen far, far better films that made me 'feel' what I want to feel when I watch this kind of documentary-I loved 'Meru', for example, different horses for different coursesWhen I write a review, it's how I feel, not a critique of other reviews. Respect others' opinionsI'm not a pro critic-I know what I like-that's all. I didn't get the music score and I hated the narrative. That's my opinion. I prefer a more 'real' experience

Just awful, despite some (I repeat) some beautiful and exciting footage. There is just so much wrong with it, I can hardly begin. Particularly, it shows very little real understanding of mountains per se, or any understanding of climbing and mountaineering. It's all just seen as an 'arena' for extreme sports. And there's a huge confusion here. The huge increase in the number of people skiing and even a bit in mountaineering has nothing to do with a greater desire for adventure but is all the result of it becoming a lot SAFER and easier for the man in the street to enjoy. And yet all this is muddled up with examples of that very small minority of people who, as ever, are taking part in extreme sports ... that's always been, and always will remain, a virtually separate thing. The commentary is so muddled and so shallow that it almost defies belief at times (e.g. when he starts talking about skiing as a form of 'mountain worship') and the Pathetic Fallacy looms very large indeed throughout. However, if you're a fan of Beethoven, as I am, you can simply shut your eyes and enjoy the music when huge chunks of the Violin and Emperor Concertos are played ... but what on earth have they to do with the Khumbu Icefall etc? And what for that matter has Vivaldi to do with Tibetan Buddhism? The relentless music track throughout is best described as crude and/or crass.

Every now and then a film comes along that defies traditional genre labels. The 'documentary' is a trusted label that promises to truthfully 'document' some aspect of the real world. Calling Mountain (2017) a documentary shows how inadequate labels can be for what is a film meditation on nature that leaves viewers to create their own message.Mountain is a visual and aural ode to the beauty, mystery, and power of mountains. It draws on 2,000 hours of filming across twenty-two countries and is narrated sparsely and with solemnity by Willem Dafoe. The Australian Chamber Orchestra provides a rousing score that blends seamlessly with the visuals. The film showcases the world's highest places rather than any individual mountain. Unlike the brilliant Sherpa (2016) which had a coherent social and political message, Mountain is a poetic meditation on mountains everywhere. It includes footage of early mountaineers as well as examples of the modern-day exploitation of mountains. It lingers over their majestic beauty, sneering briefly at queues of commercial trekkers, the clearing of ski slopes for paying customers, and the never-ending cable-cars, chair lifts and helicopters that move hordes of skiers and hikers. The film admires not only snow-covered peaks, but all kinds of mountains and all kinds of mountain activities, including people in wing-suits or on mountain bikes jumping off cliffs and climbers grappling up vertical rock walls where a single misstep can be fatal.A higher aesthetic is created when you mix stunning mountain-scape cinematography with a superb orchestral score. It is spell-binding for at least half the time, and then the repetition and lack of narrative begins to bite. While the score enhances the visuals, it can also feel like one long musical cliché. Just as we can identify Jaws and Psycho by their signature musical tropes, the dominant orchestral effects in Mountain are predictable aural cues telling us that scaling cliffs is dangerous or that flying over a mountain peak will reveal a wondrous valley below. Some might ask why the film title takes the singular form when it shows many unnamed mountains in many unnamed countries. The reverence given to the subject does not include respect for identity or acknowledgement of place, so the film does not work as a travelogue. The anonymity of the mountains is also reflected in editing that often seems random and incoherent. In one second, a climber is scaling an icy sheer wall, in another, a mountain bike jumps off a ledge. The brief mention of harm caused by commercialisation is tokenistic and so much documentary potential is left unexplored. This means the film is about appearance not substance.If this is a documentary, it is not clear what it documents. It would make a thrilling short film on a big screen or as a visual background to a live orchestral performance. While the individual aural and visual elements have great beauty, without a narrative purpose they are lovely to admire but all too easy to forget.