The film "Nanga Parbat" throws you straight into a whirlwind of big themes. Within a few lines we find ourselves facing themes such as: prudence, risk, death, responsibility, faith.
The introductory preamble would like to probe the complexity of the relationship between the Messner brothers but, as is obvious, it cannot fully succeed.
Rather slow at the start, it attempts to familiarise us with the characters so as to give ample space afterwards to the mountaineering expedition.
But the truth is that in this tragedy there were really too many people involved, each with their own specific complexity of character and of personal motives.
A film that in reality puts too much meat on the fire: a reduction that is too reduced, a summa that is too summary.
A few small twists, but never fully developed, as when Reinhold Messner has visions during the descent. Here too the pathos is thin and the theme of the voices, of the presences, is absolutely thin.
One element of realism, well rendered by the Italian dubbing, is the difficulty the protagonists have in speaking: caught in the grip of the frost, their mouths are completely frozen.
Dark sides of the characters emerge but are not well traced; perhaps at certain points, in order to keep an objective clarity, the film manages to be apathetic.
The camera work, which has been praised as exceptional, is only partly so.
The composition of the photography is good, although the lack of camera movement over the great landscapes makes the film decidedly static.
Highly provocative and stimulating is the priest's sermon at the end of the film, whose theorem in short would be: "wherever we go we are responsible for something or someone; from this responsibility often come pain and guilt. From guilt comes fear, and when fear takes over, then salvation arrives."
Debatable, perhaps: a theorem that takes into account neither man, nor Messner the man.
A film that falls short because of the impossibility of developing the themes it tackles. A film that falls short because of its inability to portray the natural environment with the right sense of depth.
One example to stand for all: Messner drinking from a puddle of water. He has not drunk for hours, he is devastated by thirst. There is no detail of that drink, no depth in the image, no bite to the act of drinking, so essential when you go to the mountains. It does not happen the way it does in the far more effective film "Touching the Void", which fully achieves its aim of communicating.
A film that entertained me, but did not involve me, and that I certainly have no intention of watching again.