The Climb

A film about a man who leaves a French suburb and climbs Everest. Samy lives in a neighbourhood north of Paris. To prove himself to a woman he likes, he says he will climb Everest. The promise starts as a joke, but once everyone in the neighbourhood has heard it he cannot step back. He has no experience at all. He does not know mountaineering, does not know the equipment, is not prepared for the cold. He sets off and climbs steadily higher; the media start following the story. The source is a real person. Nadir Dendoune reached the summit of Everest in 2008 with no mountaineering background and wrote a book about it. The film is loosely adapted from it. What interests the narrative is the neighbourhood as much as the climb: the community behind Samy, raising money and following the news, forms the second line. Part of it was shot in Nepal and in the Mont Blanc range; the summit scenes were not filmed on the real summit. Ahmed Sylla plays Samy. It is Ludovic Bernard's first feature. A warm choice for anyone who likes French comedy drama drawn from real events. For a viewer expecting a serious mountaineering film, the narrative leans largely on comedy and does not go into technical detail.