The Summit of the Gods (2021)

The only reason I knew this title is that it was included on someone's list of best animated features from 2021. The exclusion of Luca was, well, fishy, but I didn't dismiss the whole list on that basis. I chose to watch TSotG when I did partly because it's only 90 minutes and partly because it looked different from anything I'd seen lately. Which it was.

In the '90s, a shady stranger in Tibet offers to sell photojournalist Makoto Fukomachi a camera allegedly belonging to George Mallory, who might have been the first to scale Mt. Everest in 1924 but didn't make it back. Fukomachi refuses, but then he sees the vendor get shaken down for the camera -- by none other than Habu Joji, another famous climber who has been missing for years. Could Joji have come across Mallory's remains? He makes himself scarce before Fukomachi can catch up to him. Anxious for a good story, Fukomachi does detective work on Joji's background. By the time they meet again, it's not just about solving the mystery of Mallory; it's about accompanying Joji to record his next attempt to climb Everest -- in the winter, with no third member of the team.

The movie was made in France, but I watched it dubbed, so only the credits gave away anything French to me. It's the first French animation based on a manga to my knowledge. I've declined to list voice actors because neither the French speakers nor the English speakers rang a bell.

Joji's quite the jerk. Not long into his career, he wins a lot of admiration, but few people are willing to climb with him, even if they're confident that they can keep pace, because he apparently sees them as means to an end at best and deadweight at worst. Small wonder his cold demeanor transformed into reclusion, tho I do find it strange that he's so reticent on the topic of the camera. Nevertheless, when a companion is in mortal danger, he cares as much as anyone else, whether the companion is a persistent reporter or a teen in over his head.

I've said before that foreign animations are far more likely than American ones not to include any fantasy or sci-fi elements. Sometimes I have to think hard about why they didn't settle for live action. In this case, for all the realism, the reason is obvious: It'd be hard to film without subjecting the actors to severe danger. Sure, they're not free-soloing, but all the ice and snow compound the scarcity of footholds.

Indeed, when's the last time an animation made me tense up half so much? Even when characters weren't on the verge of falling, they were clearly having a tough time of it between fatigue, injuries, freezing cold, and eventually altitude-induced migraines. With my coordination and stamina, I'd be lucky to go a twentieth as far. Still, I don't see these guys as arrogant fools. I get their passion and want to cheer them on.

TSotG is indeed the most skilled 2021 animated feature I've seen yet, but it's not the kind that the Academy would favor. I recommend waiting until a warm day to watch.