The Ghosts Above

Everest without the triumphalism, and the summit push, filmed while barely able to breathe, is astonishing. Renan Ozturk climbs the mountain's Northeast Ridge in 2019 as cameraman on an expedition searching for Sandy Irvine's body and camera, which might hold a photograph from the final hours of the 1924 attempt with George Mallory. Sony released Ozturk's personal film of the search free.

This is for anyone who wants the north side of Everest as it is now: traffic jams on the ridge, the economics of guiding, and the strangeness of hunting for a dead man at 8,400 meters. It is also for non-climbers, because the 1924 mystery carries the film. Skip it if you want alpinism. The Northeast Ridge is a standard route with a ladder on the Second Step, and the film is honest that Ozturk is there to shoot, not to climb hard.

What works is the eye. Ozturk is the most distinctive cinematographer in the mountains and he turns it on the crowds and on himself, questioning why he is there. The 1960 Chinese first ascent from this side and the 1999 discovery of Mallory's body are the right context. What it gets wrong is that thirty-six minutes for both a mystery and a summit leaves the search itself underexplained, and Irvine's body remains unfound.

Good Luck, Kid is Ozturk handing his camera to a younger filmmaker on a Honnold and Caldwell climb. Watch that to see him teach. Watch this to see what he does when he keeps the camera, at the top of the world, doubting the whole enterprise.