Written by Paul Jerome Watson, Photo courtesy of Netflix
Why do you want to? Is there a reason behind it? An instinct? Will you fulfill it? Can it be fulfilled? Or will you just want more? These are the questions ‘The Summit of the Gods’ asks of its characters and anyone who witnesses the epic tale.
The film follows Makoto Fukamachi, a disgruntled photojournalist, attempting to track down missing mountain climber Joji Habu who may hold evidence about the first man to possibly climb Mount Everest, George Mallory. From there, the film weaves a grand tale of want, regret, conquest and longing with a warmth and humanity that rivals the snowy peaks of Mount Everest.
The film is a masterpiece of condensation, adapting a 1500 page manga of the same name by Jirô Taniguchi and Baku Yumemakura into a 90-minute affair without feeling underdeveloped or lacking in substance. Character arcs are firmly established and carried out to satisfying conclusions. Settings are varied but never leave before giving a strong sense of time and place. Exposition and voice-overs are used throughout the film yet never slow the momentum of the story itself.
The animation employs simple character designs with flat coloring only disrupted by light shadows and small wrinkles in clothing. This is contrasted with the painted backgrounds emanating texture and detail from the screen. These styles complement each other in various scenes, displaying beautiful imagery explaining character or drawing emotions such as awe, power, glory or insignificance from the audience. For a majority of the film, the contrasting styles lend themselves to the themes of the story unfolding and making their limited interactions all the more powerful while ensuring characters are never lost in the world they inhabit.
This contrast is furthered by the film’s use of light and color. Warm tones with light hues, cold dark reaching from the shadows, and the oblivion of white snow overwhelming the blue of Everest are all on display and mingling with each other in every scene. This use is strongly focused on the two leads, Fukamachi and Habu, showing how both oppose each other by the color of their clothes. It’s this delicacy and attention to detail in ‘The Summit of the Gods’ that makes it a spectacle, even in the dullest of settings.
The score deserves a special mention. Amine Bouhafa utilizes strings to hearken tension, evoke melancholy, conjure triumph, or provoke a sense of meaning behind the simplest of acts. When the dialogue and beautiful scenery fall away, the score effortlessly fills that void and rouses the audience into a trance.
While ‘The Summit of the Gods’ puts a lot of effort into its lead characters, it lacks in the development of the side characters. The film’s focus on Fukamachi and Habu and along with its running time leaves no room to flesh out the characters alongside their journeys. Instead, how they are portrayed leaves them to be caricatures or cliche cutouts. It’s incredibly obvious and would detract from the overall film if not for the strong characterization of its leads carrying the premise.
Outside of lacking development for its side characters and a plot point one can see well ahead of time, ‘The Summit of the Gods’ is a triumph. It excels in everything it intends to accomplish without wasting a moment of its audience’s time.
A film that lives up to its namesake, ‘The Summit of the Gods’ deserves to be viewed by everyone willing to venture its vistas and climb its peak, awing at the beautiful tale it tells with the scale to match the gods who rest upon it.
