The Summit of the Gods (Patrick Imbert)

[Philip J. Fry]

Trailer:
[

Show Spoiler

]

IMDb / wiki / RT / Metacritic

On Netflix

[Philip J. Fry]

This was superb. It has a visual style that feels very 80's anime and yet has a je ne sais quoi which brought to mind some other French films such as Funan and I Lost My Body(maybe some of the textures or the shading?) which makes it feel like a best of both worlds kinda thing.

While I felt it drags slightly at the beginning, particularly when setting up our characters, once we are in the mountain climbing-stuff, the movie pops. There's a very palpable man-vs-nature thing going on and nature isn't something to be trifled with. There's always a very palpable sense of danger and tension is ever-present, often shown with long, dialogue-free sequences in which one little mistake, one little detail means death. At the same time, there's a bit of a character study focusing on climber Habu Joji, who's often struggling between his ever-present climbing obsession (specially solo-climbing), which, paired with an incident which I will not spoil, has turned him into a bit of a loner who's only drive (maybe death wish?) is to... just keep climbing, no matter if someone knows or not. Kinda fascinating shit.

In the running with Mitchells vs the Machines for "best animated film of the year" I've seen so far.

[Philip J. Fry]