High and mighty

‘Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side,’ sang Miley Cyrus. ‘It’s the climb.’ She’s not usually a musician to be turned to for profound insight but in this case pop’s wild child has captured the absolute crux of this year’s Gravity wannabe, the visually spectacular 3D Everest, which kicked off the Venice Film Festival two weeks ago to a mixed reception.

That’s because, even though in the case of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster (in which eight people died) what was waiting on the other side for most people was a cold and lonely death, it was indeed all about the climb. Despite knowing just what a perilous undertaking reaching the Nepalese summit could be — one in four people died trying at the time — attempting to scale it had become something of a must-do for keen climbers (at least those with deep pockets — a trip to the top cost $65,000) and numerous expedition companies had sprung up to meet growing demand.