14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible
In 2019, Nepalese mountain climber Nirmal “Nims” Purja set out to do the unthinkable by climbing the world’s fourteen highest summits in less than seven months. (The previous record was eight years). He called the effort “Project Possible 14/7” and saw it as a way to inspire others to strive for greater heights in any pursuit. The film follows his team as they seek to defy naysayers and push the limits of human endurance.
- Released: 2021-11-12
- Runtime: 99 minutes
- Genre: Documentaries
- Stars: Nirmal Purja, Jimmy Chin, Reinhold Messner, Klára Kolouchová, Conrad Anker
- Director: Torquil Jones
Comments
- srirammeera - 26 December 2022
The Usain Bolt of High altitude mountaineering
I am rating it NOT for his (& his team's) accomplishment which is BEYOND superhuman and this documentary is a testimony to that, but for the qualities of this documentary as an artifact of movie making, which falls short in key respects.
Most of the documentary is oriented towards motivation and only gives some "common man" or "plain English" flavor of the challenges. Pretty much the whole documentary is a checklist of the peaks with not much time spent on the technicalities of each climb.
There is ZERO information or data, sadly, on what must have been the enormous logistical challenges to plan and pace the whole thing. For eg., the team summits Everest, Lhotse and Makalu in 48 hrs but how exactly? Why in that order? What went into planning the order of the ascents? What was involved in quickly going from mountain to mountain?
The documentary is TOTALLY silent on all such questions.
It's pretty much 90% a series of photo ops on the peaks, 14 such, interspersed with pep talks emotional and family challenges in between, some background on Nims about his military career and a few mins on his strength and endurance training, with a couple of his closest circle and family providing the "talking heads" and Reinhold Messner throwing in some very generic diluted observations on how challenging it is etc etc So yes, the documentary provides a good glossy intro to Nims Purja and his unimaginable accomplishment, to the rest of the world thanks to Netflix but beyond that, there is not much info or meat here for an enthusiastic armchair mountain climber cum movie watcher to sink his teeth into and come away enlightened about how exactly was the whole thing planned and executed.
All 14 8-thousanders is something even dedicated mountaineers consider a lifetime's achievement, so completing it in 6 months boggles the mind and redefines the meaning of possible. While Nims provided the heart, soul, vision, belief and courage, there was a whole team of individuals along with Nims who made all of the details come together, work and succeed, and supported this crazy even suicidal project through thick and thin. Sadly the documentary is mostly silent about all such details.
As they say the devil lies in the details - but not in this documentary which takes an easier route to the top. - awesomeeray - 12 April 2022
.....footage?
Listen, this isn't a bad documentary it's just poorly directed. The film is supposed to be showing us the amazing journey of 14 majestic mountains that just so happen to be the 14 tallest mountains in the world. Instead a substantial margin of the film is giving background info on the expedition leader which honestly could have been accomplished within 10min at the beginning of the film. Meanwhile, the rest of the film could have inserted relevant personal information during the visualizing of the actual expedition. Instead we got a choppy documentary that was mostly about the dude rather than the actual expedition. Congratulations Netflix you have failed yet again and with absolutely no excuse whatsoever.
