Never one to embrace modern times, I have serious disdain for Twitter, despise that inscrutable hashtag and repeatedly drop my iPhone in the toilet, an obvious Freudian slip. But I absolutely love Netflix. I would marry it if that were permitted, but alas it is still illegal in this country to marry inanimate objects and/or concepts, although surely that day is not far off.
Last night, in the comfort of my own home and with a cat on my lap, I watched an incredible movie that I just might have to see again today. K2: The Siren of the Himalayas is a 2014 documentary about a climbing expedition on that famous mountain, second in height to Mt. Everest but first in danger and technical difficulty among all other mountains on earth. While newbies and novices with enough cash are constantly ferried up Everest like kids getting towed up the local sledding hill in winter, even the best of the best international alpinists, an elite group if there ever was one, fail to summit K2 year after year.
"I liked it. You really got a sense for what
it was like on the mountain. You could imagine the
people falling 5,000 feet to their death."
--Mitch Rouda
This film gives a thrilling up-close and personal account of a team attempting to summit K2 in 2009, just a year after a horrific jumble of accidents on the mountain that killed 11 climbers. Still, off they go, spending months traveling in Pakistan just to get to the bottom of the beautiful beast, the starting point of their dangerous, 60-day pursuit of pain, hardship, fatigue and possible death (statistically, one in four die trying), all to avoid the boredom of the everyday and experience life "focused on the moment." Many of them regard the trek as a form of "walking meditation."
Aided by stunning cinematography and interspersed with a good bit of history about earlier expeditions, the film is immediately infectious. It's hard not to be envious of these intrepid climbers who at the very least have found something to live for, even if they die for it. I was jealous, wishing I could join them even as I concluded they were all downright nutty. Still, if movies are supposed to transport us to a different time and place, and hopefully teach us a few lessons on the way, K2 achieves that brilliantly. Like most documentaries it was hardly seen by anyone when it played in theaters for a short time, but now Netflix will bring it right to your TV or laptop for a small fee. Go there.
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