''Meru'' is a 2015 documentary film chronicling the first ascent of the "Shark's Fin" route on

Meru Peak Meru Peak is a mountain located in the Garhwal Himalayas, in the state of Uttarakhand in India. The peak lies between Thalay Sagar and Shivling, and has some highly challenging routes. The name Meru likely originated from the Sanskrit word f ...

in the Indian Himalayas. It was co-directed by married couple

Jimmy Chin Jimmy Chin (born ) is an American professional mountain athlete, photographer, film director, and author. Chin has been a professional climber and skier on The North Face Athlete team for over 20 years. In 2006, Chin achieved the first succes ...

and

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (; born ) is an American documentary filmmaker. She was the director, along with her husband, Jimmy Chin, for the film ''Free Solo'', which won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film profiled Alex H ...

and won the U.S. Audience Documentary Award at the

2015 Sundance Film Festival The 2015 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 22 to February 1, 2015. ''What Happened, Miss Simone?'', a biographical documentary film about American singer Nina Simone, opened the festival. Comedy-drama film ''Grandma'', directed by Pa ...

Premise

After attempting but failing to summit Meru in 2008,

Conrad Anker Conrad Anker (born November 27, 1962) is an American rock climber, mountaineer, and author. He was the team leader of The North Face climbing team for 26 years until 2018. In 1999, he located George Mallory's body on Everest as a member of a sear ...

, and

Renan Ozturk Renan is a name present in Portuguese language, Portuguese, Spanish language, Spanish, French language, French, Turkish language, Turkish and Breton language, Breton as an alternative form of Ronan. It may refer to: People Arts * Ary Renan (1857 ...

return to the mountain in order to conquer its peak – a 4,000 foot wall known as the "Shark's Fin". As they climb, the men also document their ascent. "You know, I'm always a climber first," said Chin on balancing climbing with filmmaking. "I'm always thinking about the safety of myself and the team. And I make that evaluation before I take the camera out." The film is a mixture of footage that chronicles both attempts (the failed 2008 and the successful 2011) while crafting a narrative about the climbers' attempts to face their demons. After suffering an horrific accident while filming on location with Chin, Ozturk has a mere five months to recover before their second attempt, battling near-fatal injuries. Four days after Ozturk's accident, Chin returns to the filming location to finish but is caught in a catastrophic avalanche that he miraculously survives with barely a scratch. Anker wrestles with bringing his mentor's dream to fruition and the loss of both him and his climbing partner many years ago. During the successful 2011 summit, Chin and Ozturk shared a Canon 5D Mark II and a Panasonic TM900 camcorder to capture footage that would be used in the film.

Reception

On review aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, ''Meru'' has an approval rating of 90% based on 73 reviews, with a rating average score of 7.4 out of 10. The site's consensus reads, "Gripping visually as well as narratively, ''Meru'' is the rare documentary that proves thought-provoking while offering thrilling wide-screen vistas." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a score of 77 out of 100 based on reviews from 15 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The film made $91,279 from 7 theaters in its opening weekend. It expanded to 35 theaters in its second weekend, making $562,786. During its fifth weekend, it earned $416,701 from 176 theaters, bringing the total box office gross to $2,334,228. On December 1, the film was selected as one of 15 shortlisted for the

Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

Awards

*Golden Piton by ''Climbing Magazine'' for Best Big Wall Climb of the Year *Number 1 ascent of the year by ''Rock and Ice Magazine'' *U.S. Audience Documentary Award at the

References

External links

* * {{Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin 2015 films 2015 documentary films Films directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi Films directed by Jimmy Chin Films shot in India Avalanches in film Mountaineering films Documentary films about climbing Films set in Uttarakhand 2010s English-language films

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