Race to the Summit

Ueli Steck and Dani Arnold are two Swiss climbers. Both go up the most dangerous north faces of the Alps alone and without rope: the Eiger, the Matterhorn, the Grandes Jorasses. What is between them is not reaching the summit but how fast it is reached. In 2011 Arnold cut twenty minutes off Steck's record on the Eiger north face. Steck took it back. The rivalry went on that way. Nicholas de Taranto's documentary combines footage the two men shot themselves with interviews. At the centre of the narrative is not technical achievement but why speed climbing is so lethal: the margin for error is zero, and the competition itself makes that margin smaller. Ueli Steck died in 2017, falling on Nuptse while preparing for Everest; he was forty. The film was made after that ending and leaves its questions about the cost of the rivalry open. Who it's for: Viewers who like mountaineering documentaries, narratives of sporting rivalry, and footage of the Alps. Who it's not for: The constant presence of the risk of death is heavy for some. The narrative also does not settle clearly between criticising the rivalry and glorifying it.