Movie Review: Mountain (2017)

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Fascinated by the kind of synesthesia that occurs at the opera wherein “you end up listening more with your eyes and seeing more with your ears,” Australia Chamber Orchestra Artistic Director Richard Tognetti was inspired to see if the same phenomenon could be true of film.

Commissioning documentarian Jennifer Peedom to help put this to the test, the two worked alongside Mountains of the Mind author Robert Macfarlane, principle cinematographer Renan Ozturk, and Oscar nominated actor Willem Dafoe to create Mountain.

Best described by Peedom as “a marriage of music, words and picture,” in which all but nine of the film’s seventy-four minute running time is devoid of music, this ambitious follow-up to her 2015 award-winner Sherpa is an extraordinary sensuous feast.

Longing to explore the various ways in which our ever-changing relationship to mountains have changed in a relatively short period of time, Peedom tapped Macfarlane to pen the film’s intentionally sparse narration.

A writerly marvel, with its rhythmic blend of research and poetry made all the more intoxicating by Dafoe’s pitch-perfect delivery, in spite of its short length, Macfarlane's script would make quite a compelling book in its own right.

Cutting the film’s excellently curated and state-of-the-art original cinematography together with its Australia Chamber Orchestra soundtrack of Chopin, Grieg, Vivaldi, Beethoven, and new compositions by Tognetti, we’re hypnotized by the way Mountain’s constantly moving camera glides over snow like a bow over strings.

Watching traffic queue up a mountainside curly-cue style before showering the screen with an almost otherworldly view of the night skies, Peedom and her team use music, cinematography, and editing to give us a vicarious emotional experience of the Everest highs to the volcanic lows of mountain life that's simply amazing to behold.

Filmed in twenty-two countries, this experimental work pushes the boundaries of what we use to define a documentary. Released in three distinct versions including theatrical, IMAX, and a special live edit to go along with orchestral accompaniment, Peedom's film dazzles regardless of format.

That said, of course, similar to the way that climbers need the best gear, audiences do as well. Much like its subject, size (and in this case sound) matters, and this Mountain is best experienced on the biggest screen you can find.

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Blu-ray Review: Earth (2009)

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Thinking of going HD? If you're tempted to succumb to cheaper price-tags that adorn the dully lit 720p televisions as opposed to 1080p offerings-- which boast the same resolution as Blu-ray-- you should read on. For after just a few minutes of watching Earth, the inaugural release of Walt Disney's new label DisneyNature, you will have changed your mind completely.

For the DVD format, The Matrix was credited as the film that launched the digital revolution since in the early days of DVD over 80% of households possessed the title and indeed, it's the first film I saw on disc. Yet ten years later when it comes to Blu-ray and HD, for sheer jaw-dropping beauty, Earth is the movie that will validate your decision each and every time your credit card statement arrives.

While it's not a traditional cinematic masterpiece from a critical point of view since it's an abridged roughly 90 minute version of BBC's award-winning miniseries Planet Earth, this title marks the first time audiences have ever seen an aerial view of Mount Everest. To achieve this extraordinary feat, the BBC/DisneyNature/Discovery Channel production was granted "unique access to a Nepalese Army spy plane" to produce footage from that altitude.

And because it is derived from previously televised source material, I'm unsure if Earth would qualify for a cinematography Oscar nomination. However it's arguably the most breathtaking work of the year from a sensory standpoint. More than just a documentary, Earth is a film to which you could meditate without the sound due to the gorgeous craftsmanship involved in the endless pans and unique edits to illustrate the way that the seasons change and animals grow.

In anticipation of its release, Earth was filmed completely with high-definition cameras which makes Blu-ray the ultimate way to appreciate not just the film's scope but also the tireless and daring result of, as Variety cited nearly thirty cinematographers. The group who risked their lives for more than four thousand intense days of photography took part in "the biggest documentary production ever" with a budget that's upwards of forty million dollars. And to the their professional credit, everything is captured onscreen without the use of computer graphics.

Granted when I started the film, I feared I was going to have to eject the Blu-ray in favor for the combo package's DVD since the Blu's menu was so difficult to navigate that I suffered three false starts while attempting to watch the movie without the picture in picture filmmaker commentary. Still, once I managed to get it playing, from the technical side alone, this Disney release has surpassed the other front-runners of must-owns for high definition junkies so far in '09 including several produced by the same studio.

However, I must confess that as much as I love the idea of nature, I'm not someone who could ever be mistaken for outdoorsy or a nature girl since I was quite possibly the only audience member to nearly fall asleep out of sheer boredom at the overly long March of the Penguins despite my admiration for it again as a beautiful work of art. Despite this I loved Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World even though its focus was on eccentrics more than history and I enjoyed Arctic Tale aside from the narration written for Queen Latifah which was especially cringe-worthy. Yet after staring at this screener for a couple weeks before taking the plunge, I can truly say that even for those who dislike hiking and camping, Earth was an extremely pleasant surprise that far surpassed the aforementioned works.

Likewise, it's just the right length in ensuring it doesn't over-analyze every single organism in the narration written for James Earl Jones (who takes over for the voice of Planet Earth, Mr. Patrick Stewart). Nor does Earth relish in the gore of attacks or slithering reptiles that may have driven younger viewers and this reviewer to nightmares as we move from the Arctic to the mountains to the tropics to the desert and beyond.

Of course, global warming is touched upon and it's truly heartbreaking to see a polar bear swimming--the same way we do, mind you for those who debunk evolution-- out much too far to try and acquire food to his peril. Yet Disney leaves lectures about our planet's condition to Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio via their acclaimed documentaries An Inconvenient Truth and The 11th Hour respectively.

Having seen Penguins and Arctic Tale, I was especially thrilled when Earth moved away from the icy terrain. In doing so, audiences could enjoy the bizarre and often unintentionally humorous footage of not just a baby elephant on his first "road trip," but in my favorite segment, unprecedented access to species of birds which I'd never seen before in my nearly three decades of life on our planet.

Winner of the Heartland Truly Moving Picture Award, Earth is a terrific kick-off to Disney's new banner of nature themed works which couldn't be timelier as this disc also presents us with a glimpse of 2010's Oceans. Earth is also noteworthy for honoring the way that Disney is able to stay with the times yet never abandon their roots given the studio's 1950s topically similar Oscar winning True Life Adventure documentary series.

Moreover, it's this amazing benefit of granting viewers the chance to go places we'd never be able to visit from the top of Everest to the inner regions of the tropics that make documentaries like Earth so valuable and necessary from an educational perspective.

Text ©2009, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com
Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited.

TV on DVD: Nature Tech

The Award-Winning
Smithsonian Channel Series
Nature Tech
Evolves Onto DVD
1/13/09

Visit the Smithsonian Channel Site

Video Clips:

"Inspiration Can Come From Anywhere."

"Under the Sea."

"It's a Bird, It's a Plane--
It Flies Like Both."

Over the course of the roughly two and a half hour DVD which features the three episodes of the Smithsonian Network miniseries documentary Nature Tech, audience members--like this reviewer-- who can barely recall their high school science courses get a visually arresting and highly compelling refresher course with an emphasis on green technology and the groundbreaking discipline of "biomimetics." (Yeah, I'd never heard of it either.)

Described as an "evolving science" that fixates on "nature for answers to modern problems in unexpected ways," we discover the way that long before science was a pursued course of study, nature-- or more precisely evolution-- served as the "ultimate inventor." Having not only "solved all of life's problems," over the course the 4 billion-year history of our planet, this Emmy and multiple award winning series further explains that "many of man's most-clever engineering solutions have exact counterparts in nature."

Broken up into three parts, the DVD begins with Energy is Key, which gives us an overview of the way we've used energy over the course of history from the Bronze Age up through the Industrial Age-- perhaps without comprehending (as we now know) the astronomical cost that it's had on Earth.

Introducing us to the concept of biomimetics which has flourished in the wake of the dubbed "Information Revolution," we're given an insider's view of the way that nature has kept us moving forward. Featuring a refresher on the basics of photosynthesis, Energy is Key also boasts a particularly fascinating segment on the Gemini House in Austria as we learn more about the costly solar panels which rotate with the sun as though they were leaves until the documentary breaks it down even further by analyzing the wonders of leaves themselves and the chemicals and membranes therein.

Spending some time discussing the hybrid car and hydrogen fuel cell debate and the double-edged sword of needing to cause pollution to make pollution-free cars, the episode soon moves unexpectedly into the realm of termite colonies and the way that the intricate ventilated clay mounds with constant temperature have inspired builders to look for energy efficient methods in their own construction.

In the Emmy award winning Magic of Motion (which received an honor for its breathtaking cinematography), we go way back in time to study the evolution of movement and the way that legs, wings, and fins have inspired us in the realm of cars, bikes, and planes as we're advised to "look again" at the impact that researching a bird's "lift-off" led to gliding which ultimately evolved into airplane travel.

A rich and involving episode filled with scientific history that's affected the lives of all inhabitants, Magic of Motion is a particular standout in a series of superlative documentaries that come highly recommended for school libraries and/or supplemental scientific education for interested or home-schooled students (and also earned the series a Gold Parent's Choice Foundation Award).

Additionally, it leads into a thought-provoking analysis of design in The Material World that begins by introducing us to greenhouse history and London's "Crystal Palace," to again inspiring us with the idea that leaves can support enormous weight as the scientists blend the study of the natural world with that of the human body, using human femur inspired structure from our skeletons to erect tall buildings and landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower.

A fascinating subject that's captured in an energetically creative way filled with candid nature footage that's sure to appeal to students, Nature Tech makes suitable viewing for all ages but would be of particular benefit to those at the level of middle school or above to fully absorb the vast knowledge offered up by the filmmakers that will no doubt play better on additional viewings, not to mention would be augmented by an interactive classroom curriculum and further study.

As someone who was always intrigued by science yet didn't excel in the subject or pursue it as much as I would've liked, it's a great and incredibly timely look at the state of our planet and features an admirable approach to use creative thinking and problem solving from the natural world to resolve conflicts that have been created by men.

A celebration of evolution and the rich and incredibly complex ways plants, animals, and humans have changed over the years-- with the underlying theme that there is more to every living thing than one can possibly begin to understand (as you'll never look at a leaf in precisely the same way again)-- Infinity Entertainment Group and Smithsonian Networks' acclaimed program hits DVD retail markets like Amazon on January 13, 2009.