''Mountain'' is a 2017 Australian

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

, co-written, co-produced and directed by

Jennifer Peedom Jennifer Peedom is a BAFTA-nominated Australian director. Her documentary ''Solo'' (co-directed with David Michôd) won the 2009 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Documentary in Under One Hour. Her film ''Sherpa'', which was filmed ...

. It premiered at the

Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century architec ...

in June 2017. ''Mountain'' follows Peedom's 2015 documentary film ''

Sherpa Sherpa may refer to: Ethnography * Sherpa people, an ethnic group in north eastern Nepal * Sherpa language Organizations and companies * Sherpa (association), a French network of jurists dedicated to promoting corporate social responsibility * ...

''.

Synopsis

The film explores high peaks around the world while telling the relationship between humans and

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited Summit (topography), summit area, and ...

s across time.

Cast

Willem Dafoe Willem James Dafoe (; born July 22, 1955) is an American actor. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Willem Dafoe, various accolades, including the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, in addition to receiving nominations for ...

, as the narrator Adventure sports people: *

Alex Honnold Alexander Honnold (born August 17, 1985) is an American rock climber best known for his Free solo climbing, free solo ascents of Big wall climbing, big walls. Honnold rose to prominence in June 2017 when he became the first person to free solo El ...

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 ...

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 ...

Tommy Caldwell Tommy Caldwell (born August 11, 1978) is an American rock climber who has set records in sport climbing, traditional climbing, and in big-wall climbing. Caldwell made the first free ascents of several major routes on El Capitan in Yosemite Natio ...

*Matt Helliker *

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 ...

Will Gadd Will Gadd (born March 8, 1967) is a prominent Canadian ice climber and paraglider pilot. He formerly held the paragliding world distance record, with a flight of 423 km in Zapata, Texas. He is the host of the documentary series ''Fearless ...

*Ricky Bell *Freddie Wilkinson *John Jackson *

David Lama David Lama ( ne, डेभिड लामा; 4 August 1990 – 16 April 2019) was an Austrian sport climber and mountaineer. He won the European Championship in bouldering in 2007 and the European Championship in lead climbing in 2006. He ...

*Sean 'Stanley' Leary *

Stefan Glowacz Stefan Glowacz (born March 22, 1965 in Tittmoning) is a German professional rock climber and adventurer. He started climbing at the age of 12 and advanced to one of the world's best sports climbers only few years later. Since 1993 he has been d ...

Leo Houlding Leo Houlding (born 28 July 1980) is a British rock climber and mountaineer. Early life Houlding began rock climbing at the age of 10. In 1996, he became the British Junior Indoor Climbing Champion. He spent the summer of 1997, aged 17, living in ...

* Tim Emmett *Jason Pickles * Hilaree O'Neill * Joey Schusler *Mark Landvik *Matt Blank *Pat Moore *Rob Jarman *Sam Seward *

Scotty Lago Scotty Lago (born November 12, 1987) is an American snowboarder. He is the 2004 world quarterpipe champion and winner of a bronze medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Career Lago has been riding since 1996. He is sponsored by Hudsen Collective, ...

*Tara Kerzhner *

Travis Rice Travis Rice (born October 9, 1982) is an American professional snowboarder. He is #13 on ''Snowboarder'' magazine's list of the 20 most influential snowboarders of the last 20 years.

*Tyson Swasey *Kurtis Sorge *Jonathan Winter *Karl Thompson *Theo Sanson *Andy Farrington *

Candide Thovex Candide Thovex (born 22 May 1982) is a French professional skier, filmmaker and entrepreneur. He is known for his creative freestyle skiing movies and professional accomplishments. He first caught the attention of the world of outdoor and act ...

* Danny Davis *

Darren Berrecloth Darren Berrecloth (born October 30, 1981), nicknamed "The Claw", is a professional freeride mountain bike rider. Born in Parksville, British Columbia, Canadian Darren Berrecloth is famous not only for his success in competitions, but also as on ...

*Filippo Fabbi *Ian Flanders *Jon Devore

Production

After her critically acclaimed film, ''

'', Peedom resumes her work with American mountaineer and photographer

. He is responsible for most of the images in the film. American actor

narrates the film and reads passages from Robert Macfarlane's book "

Mountains of the Mind ''Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination'' is a book by British writer Robert Macfarlane published in 2003 about the history of the human fascination with mountains. The book takes its title from a line by the poet Gerard Manley Hopk ...

Critical response

On review aggregator

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 ...

, the film has an approval rating of 84% based on 68 reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "''Mountain'' offers a visually thrilling — and surprisingly affecting — look at man's relationship with some of Earth's most imposing natural wonders." 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 ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 82 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Janine Israel from ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' gave the film four out of five stars and called it a "masterful documentary". Gayle MacDonald from ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'' gave the film three out of four stars, praising the visual and musical feature of the film. Harry Windsor from ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' called it "one of the most visceral essay films ever made" thanks to the musical score and the non-traditional narrative approach, however, he criticised the length of the movie, defining it "slightly overextended".

Accolades

At the

8th AACTA Awards The 8th Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards (generally known as the AACTA Awards) is an award ceremony to celebrate Australian films of 2018. The main ceremony was televised on Seven Network The Seven Network (commonly kno ...

, ''Mountain'' won three awards: "Best Cinematography in a Documentary" (

), "Best Original Music Score in a Documentary" (

Richard Tognetti Richard Leo Tognetti AO (born 4 August 1965) is a leading Australian musician recognised internationally as a violin soloist, ensemble player, leader, composer and arranger, conductor and artistic director. He is currently artistic dire ...

), and "Best Sound in a Documentary" (David White and Robert Mackenzie). The documentary was also nominated for "Best Editing in a Documentary" (Christian Gazal and Scott Gray) and " Best Feature Length Documentary. Robert Mackenzie was nominated for the "Award for Best Sound" at the 2017

Australian Screen Sound Guild The Australian Screen Sound Guild was formed in 1988 to represent people working in audio engineering and post-production in film, television, multimedia and other related audio industries. such as those involved with location sound, sound editi ...

. The film was also nominated for "Best Documentary Feature" at the 2017

Hamptons International Film Festival The Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) is an international film festival founded in 1992, by Joyce Robinson. The festival has since taken place every year in East Hampton, New York. It is usually an annual five-day event in mid-October a ...

and "Best Documentary Film (Local or International)" at the 2018

Australian Film Critics Association The Australian Film Critics Association (AFCA), formerly Melbourne Film Critics’ Forum, is an Australian professional association A professional association (also called a professional body, professional organization, or professional socie ...

Awards.

References

External links

* {{Use dmy dates, date=June 2019 2017 films 2017 documentary films Australian documentary films Avalanches in film Films about Mount Everest Mountaineering films Documentary films about climbing 2010s English-language films English-language documentary films