Nothing much to it. It's not digical recordings so it looks kinda crappy, but it's a lot of interesting climbs and ideas. Most of his first climbs are very interesting. The Mount Everest climbs without oxygen are the best thing. But unfortunately the last half of the documentary is quite mediocre/bad. You hear Messner explain a lot of his theories about the world and the doc just gets stuck on this and his current home and personal museum. Stuff that many people do today besides him. Instead I wanted to see more climbing or hear about his other climbing stories. Hell, the guy has published 80 books by now, surely you can fill out 45 minutes with his climbing stories?
Basically, there are 2 very interesting climbing stories here. First no-oxygen climb of Everest and then first no-oxygen climb of Everest alone. But they spend a few minutes on that only. If you like to know who Messner is a person, how he thinks and how his house looks like this is a documentary for you. Personally I still liked it because I was introduced to the greatest mountaineer ever. But thinking back I don't think it was particularly good. And since there are hundreds of documentaries with him or about him I'm sure there are MUCH better intros about him that could easily replace this one. Especially now that not all recordings look like mediocre VHS tapes. Some digital shots, maps and 3D recreations of mountains would be perfect for a proper documentary about his climbs. We for example hear that his brother died on a mountain with him there, but the doc spends 20 seconds on that story. Come on now... Instead much of the time is spent on that other boring stuff. And even worse, Messner has remarried several times since then so his personal life story and philosophy is not fully told in this old documentary. It tries to be a biography and fails. But as an intro it's good enough.
Basically, there are 2 very interesting climbing stories here. First no-oxygen climb of Everest and then first no-oxygen climb of Everest alone. But they spend a few minutes on that only. If you like to know who Messner is a person, how he thinks and how his house looks like this is a documentary for you. Personally I still liked it because I was introduced to the greatest mountaineer ever. But thinking back I don't think it was particularly good. And since there are hundreds of documentaries with him or about him I'm sure there are MUCH better intros about him that could easily replace this one. Especially now that not all recordings look like mediocre VHS tapes. Some digital shots, maps and 3D recreations of mountains would be perfect for a proper documentary about his climbs. We for example hear that his brother died on a mountain with him there, but the doc spends 20 seconds on that story. Come on now... Instead much of the time is spent on that other boring stuff. And even worse, Messner has remarried several times since then so his personal life story and philosophy is not fully told in this old documentary. It tries to be a biography and fails. But as an intro it's good enough.
