A good movie

Yesterday we watched a good movie at the cinema complex here.

In the morning we joined the Memory Walk organised by the Alzheimers Society. It was cold and windy, and there had been rain recently, but lots of others braved the weather with us, including Richard Faull, New Zealand's leading brain researcher. He was educated first at Tikorangi School, where Carys and Spencer go.

Saturday evening we joined another crowd who listened spell-bound to his lecture in the Boys High School Hall. We heard about the latest research on the brain, including ideas like keeping our brains active to stave off dementia; if we slow the onset by five years we save 50% of the numbers suffering from dementia in a few years' time.

After all the excitement of the walk on Sunday morning we had lunch at the Art Cafe, run by our friend Sally Johnson. In the later afternoon we walked back to town to see the "Everest" movie.

This spectacular film tells the story of the disastrous 1996 climb managed by New Zealanders Rob Hall and Andy Harris, in which both of them and several others of the party lost their lives. At that time we were just getting friendly with Andy's parents, who had just come to live here.

A few years later we read Jon Krakauer's book, Into Thin Air, which tells his version of events. Krakauer was a reporter who was a member of the ill-fated expedition.

The impact of the film is due to the careful planning, photography and direction, which make the story pretty clear, and give us a good feel of the conditions on the mountain on the day of the ascent.

Teams shot the sequences in Nepal, Italy and the UK. The depiction of both the climbing and the camps is very realistic.We have not visited Nepal, but have been in nearby Indian districts and we felt right at home in Kathmandu, for instance.

The acting was all well done. As the Guardian's reviewer writes, "Emily Watson is terrific as the base camp controller trying to manage the unfolding chaos, and it’s her scenes that pack the greatest punch, her face and voice a pitch-perfect portrayal of alarmed restraint."

I would have liked a bit more of the actual climbing, to balance the emphasis on the human parts of the story, but that would have made the film far too long.

Do see it; we recommend it. We saw the 2D version, but the 3D is probably even more graphic.