“Meru” is adventure and disaster porn at its finest, especially for Bozeman residents. Conrad Anker, a current Bozemanite introduces his twenty year dream to climb the ‘Shark’s Fin’ on Meru, due to this being a dream of his late mentor. This documentary follows the adventure and two expeditions of Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk, with narration and interviews from their friends and families, one that pops up throughout being Jon Krakauer. Through the film I tried to focus on the language used by Jon, and the three climbers on these expeditions to relate to the themes we have spent the semester digging through, and analyzing in the history of mountaineering, especially in the Himalayas, with this film fitting perfectly.

Jon Krakauer is a main interviewee throughout the film, and I find his words rather interesting, with how he describes these three men, and their expeditions. He begins his interviews by explaining the summit that is trying to be attained by saying “It’s the headwaters of the Ganges river, one of the most sacred rivers on Earth. The center of the universe. It’s this weird nexus that sort of is the point where Heaven and Earth and Hell all come together”(Chin & Vasarhelyi, 8:10-8:25). This explanation of the Shark’s Fin by Krakauer stands out especially to me, in that a film that is rather secular, has little to do with religion, except for the use of prayer flags throughout, still portrays this mountain as a religious entity, that is sacred and a connecting point for two opposite religious forces, in this one spot. With this description, can we see a reason this has yet to be summited? The Shark’s Fin is said in the documentary to have more attempts and failures than any other route in the Himalayas, and as Krakauer puts it “That to a certain kind of mindset, is an irresistible appeal” (Chin & Vasarhelyi, 9:20). Throughout the film Conrad looks back on this journey of life, losing two climbing buddies, Renan goes through a severe almost life altering accident, and Jimmy is caught in a near death experience, but to all three men, the ascent of Meru is something they desire and need to do for themselves, and for their lost climbing buddies, as well as lost family members. On their first ascent up Meru, which was failed, Jimmy starts a sentence saying “The center of the universe is…” in which Conrad finishes “…unattainable” rendering the Shark’s Fin an impossible climb for these three, but also seems to be a driving force behind why they need to reach the top(Chin & Vasarhelyi, 37:56).

The first ascent being a failure, results the men going down the mountain and Renan getting into a freak accident, and Jimmy being swept into an avalanche that should have ended his life, but the prospect of a second attempt is still on their minds. Jimmy states that “They say the best alpinists are the ones with the worst memory” which can be clearly shown by the motivation in these climbers(Chin & Vasarhelyi, 40:39). We have been reading books all semester on ascents up mountains in the Himalayas, and the need to reach the summit and attain that goal in a person’s life, and this quote seems to reign true with what we have been reading and discussing. Mountaineers seem to have this draw to the sport, not remembering how many of their climbing buddies have passed away on the mountains, or not remembering the difficulties they had on their last climb, mountaineering just seems to be something that climbers cannot pass up due to risk, it’s more about the personal drive and desire to summit more mountains. Conrad Anker explains mountaineering as “high-altitude Himalayan climbing is very risky. It is the most dangerous professional sport, but with Meru, that risk is worth it” (Chin & Vasarhelyi, 3:53). The use of “worth it” is present throughout the whole documentary in reference to climbing and the risk, and it seems that to the high-altitude mountaineers, anything they do is worth it. We have been asking ourselves and discussing this all semester, what makes this dangerous and extremely risky sport worth it? Watching this documentary, watching facial expressions, and body language, the tone of voice, and the raw emotions caught on camera, I can see the deep rooting of this phrase ‘it’s worth it.’ The emotional draw that mountaineers have to climbing, even in the worst situations, losing their best friends on the mountain, and utter exhaustion, these three climbers find peace on the mountain. The peace these three seemed to have once they reached the summit, looks to be unattainable in any other sport or lifestyle than mountaineering, and it is very clear through their motivation and journey, this is their life goal, and this is how they find their fulfillment.

One more theme I found in this film was one we have not touched on this semester too much but was Conrad’s life story. In short, he was mentored by a man, Mugs Stump, who he ended losing, and his newfound climbing partner was Alex Lowe. On an expedition they both were on, Alex Lowe passed away, leaving Conrad Anker without him. In an interview Conrad talks about a buddy speaking with him after the death of his best friend, and Conrad quotes his friend in saying “Yep, survivor’s guilt is a bear” (Chin & Vasarhelyi, 1:01:48). The mention of survivor’s guilt did not seem like a huge issue to me when looking at climbing, but the emotions that Conrad displays through this guilt shows the rawness of the climber’s friendships with each other, and the thought one could have after losing someone on the mountain in the same expedition. The thought of one climber just trying to be glad that they them self survived a disaster on the mountain, but feeling that guilt that it was someone else who took the death is a pretty heavy element to climbing that could so easily take a toll on a climber’s life.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed his film, and felt it was a great way to relate to the readings we have had all semester, and the themes that we have explored. It dealt with a lot of emotions that are hard to get across through books, and the film aspect gave it a really cool look into the actual process of climbing a mountain, and making that summit the first ascent.