Meru

Meru premiered at Sheffield DocFest this year over in the Library Theatre to a sizeable audience. I'd seen jeopardy in the trailer but it was nothing like the feeling I got from the real film. The trailer gave away nothing, the film evolved into more than a tale of rock climbers becoming an epic adventure for all of us left watching through our fingers.



Director/Producer team Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and husband Jimmy Chin couldn't have written the story that unfolded. They captured some incredible footage up on the mountain, footage that could only be achieved by expert climbers who doubled up as spectacular photographers. We were immediately captivated by the friendship, expertise and adventure of our three main characters and all through the lenses of a 5D and a handicam! (eat that camera snobs).

adventureblog.nationalgeographic.com

The film captured moments of immense jeopardy. We see fingers and toes suffering trench-foot, we watch high-winds bombard a tent suspended 16,000ft in the air, we watch our friends as they suffer huge physical and psychological knock-backs and battle immensely dangerous surroundings. It really is an incredible portrait of human achievement, championing the height of what we can achieve through such devotion, spirit and perhaps a little insanity.

theclymb.com

Vasarhelyi revealed that husband Jimmy had reservations about featuring as a character in the documentary due to his own modesty but she had managed to convince him that he was an integral part of the sensational story of man vs. mountain. Thank goodness that she did! Jimmy soon became the loveable character among the trio, cracking jokes at times of uncertainty and proving forever the optimist. She did however pass on the revelation that Jimmy regretted swearing on camera –no judgements passed at all though Jimmy, have no fear there!

merufilm.com

Of course there’s Renan, a man who left his heart at the top of a mountain and couldn’t rest until he’d climbed to claim it back. He showed remarkable human strength and determination, t was like watching a Hollywood movie at times. Lastly, there’s Conrad, the daddy of the group. A man who is highly respected in his profession and highly regarded by the cinema audience too. He is quick to warm to and without giving away the final moments of the film, proves to be a gentleman. He is a man that pushes ego aside and strips himself right down to reveal a genuine wanderer with a firm heart and incredible talent. He humbles us further with the fact he submitted Everest without Oxygen just 3 months after the Meru climb!

merufilm.com - Jimmy Chin Photography

The film took 7yrs to make, throwing out two previous versions and finishing just 10 days before the film’s Sundance submission deadline. Co-director Jimmy insisted also that authenticity was essential in the edit, down to the very music tracks they would listen to on their Meru climb – proving pricey at the stage of music rights clearance. The story that was finally told at Sheffield’s Library Theatre deserved the big screen it featured on. It is expertly edited to tell aspects of a story that sees accidents, near-death escapes, incredible resilience and a rather beautiful bromance that saw me in tears. (Although at the moment of Ramon’s neck crack it did feel a little like we’d switched genre to a horror, prompting an outbreak of gasps from the Sheffield audience). Despite this, the film really is a story of man vs mountain that leaves us rushing to get our crampons on and resembles much of what we consider a part of the human story.

merufilm.com - Jimmy Chin Photography

Meru is released in UK cinemas later this year and I highly recommend it, particularly to any adventurers, climbers or outdoor athletes!

Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners

showroomworkstation.org.uk

Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners was screened at Sheffield DocFest this morning as part one of a series set to broadcast in July this year.

The first 15mins of the film are entirely presenter-led. With PTCs and tireless cutaways of archives at Kew it felt more like a virtual lecture than a TV programme but 20mins in, it began to find it's feet a little. Although now we moved on to a slim and organic portrayal of idillic travel locations as our presenter and historian, continues to recount the evidence he has found, instead of actually showing it to us. I felt we lost a lot of the impact of the history, as it was lost in shots of nothing. We had no proof to anything Olusoga was telling us, despite him telling us he'd seen it.

bbc.co.uk

Credit where credit's due, the shots were nice. The "pin-pointing" on the maps showed exactly how common British slave owners were and that captured me greatly in that, 'it's close enough to Google Maps for mere echoes of past ghosts to be affected'. The musical score (particularly as we move to Barbados) was emotive and we finally began to meet the ghosts of the history that should have jumped right at us, given the title, from the very beginning. We were finally given the chance to explore physical history when we are presented with shackles and chains that provoke a rightly emotive reaction from Olusoga. I also got the snippet of archive that I had been waiting for.

epicworldhistory.blogspot.com

It's a tough subject to crack, and only towards the end did I feel engaged with the subject matter and actually pick up the names of some of these forgotten slave owners I was promised in the title. Here, about 40mins in I felt really engaged. There were contributors to shift the focus away from Olusoga, there were historical locations and specific figures to learn about. It finally emerged from lecture and became a story, it became television!

Overall the first 20mins of the film struggles, and I fear it might lose viewers on it's BBC platform. There is a greater need for archive, historical relics and locations given it is just that, 'history'. Overall, it had it's moments of revelation and some nice cinematography. There is one statement that sticks in my mind from the film being that we 'turned widows into slave owners and ordinary men into tyrants' and I feel that this is a history we (Britain) must accept and hold ourselves accountable for. I just felt that the film didn't quite achieve the impact it's title suggests. Overall, quite ironically, it remains my most forgettable film of the festival.