THE LAST MOUNTAIN
****
Director: Chris Terrill
Principal cast:
Alison Hargreaves
James Ballard
Tom Ballard
Kate Ballard
Daniele Nardi
Stefania Pederiva
Country: UK
Classification: M
Runtime: 107 mins.
Australian release date: Releases in select cinemas from 20 February 2022 and on Digital Download from 16 March.
The Last Mountain, directed by Chris Terrill, begins by relating the story of Alison Hargreaves, a famous British alpinist who, in 1995, set herself the challenge of climbing three of the highest mountains in the world in the same year - Everest, K2 and Kangchenjunga - unaided, without oxygen and alone. Her first achievement was successfully reaching the summit of Mount Everest in May; she then moved on to K2 in August, again reaching the mountain’s peak but, tragically, while descending she was caught in a storm and perished. She was 33 and her body has never been found. Naturally, her death devastated her family - husband James ‘Jim’ Ballard and their two young children, Tom, six at the time, and Kate, four - and a few weeks later Jim took the youngsters to K2’s base camp in Pakistan so they could see where their mother had died. He told them that their mum’s spirit remained in the region and this provided some comfort for them. It also gave both Tom and Kate the climbing bug. They fell in love with the mountains and both became mountaineers when they grew up.
Terrill then moves on to Tom’s mountaineering career. He was the first person to climb all the great north faces of the Alps in a single winter and, like his mother, he preferred to climb solo. In 2019, unusually for him, he teamed up with Italian climber Daniele Nardi and the two set out to conquer Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, known as ‘the killer mountain’ because storms and avalanches happen frequently, via a never-climbed route called the Mummery Spur… in winter. They made a number of attempts with two other climbers but, eventually, the others said it was too dangerous and left. Tom and Daniele wouldn’t be deterred, however, and the two men made another attempt. It was to be their last expedition and they died on what some believe was their descent. Their bodies, like Alison’s, have never been recovered. Tom was only 30-years-old and he died in the same mountain range as his mother.
In The Last Mountain, Terrill has created a moving documentary with people who have unselfishly shared their heartache with the rest of the world. He was able to do this because he has filmed the Ballard family for nearly 25 years, first capturing their trek to K2 after the death of Alison in ’95 and then intermittently recording Tom and Kate’s climbing, skiing and snowboarding successes as they matured. After Tom’s tragic demise, Kate travelled to Nanga Parbat to come to terms with her grief. She re-united with the Pakistani guide, ‘Big’ Ibrahim, who carried her on the trek to K2 all those years before but, on this occasion, they walked the trail together. Kate talks about the devastating loss she felt when her brother died and discusses her close relationship with her father, who viewed the challenges faced by his wife and son as, “like playing Russian roulette with a lot of bullets in the chamber.” The film also contains revealing interviews with Tom’s Italian fiancée, Stefania Pederiva, and Daniele Nardi’s biographer.
As you’d expect in a documentary of this nature, Terrill’s mountain footage is thrilling (at times, you get vertigo just sitting in your seat) and, often, extremely beautiful. This is a story that is compelling, not only because of the vertiginous experience but also the filmmaker’s sincere respect for two courageous people who were determined to face danger to fulfill their desires. Some may view this as reckless ambition but it is an ambition shared by many who devote their lives to conquering the world’s most difficult peaks. The standard response to the perennial question, “Why climb a mountain?” is always, “Because it’s there,” but The Last Mountain goes further in trying to understand what drives someone to push safe boundaries in life. Tom himself always struggled to explain what drove him to climb: “It’s just something inside,” he said. “I feel at one with mountains - like a moving rock or piece of ice.” Watching the extraordinary ease with which he climbs, you begin to get an inkling of what he felt.
Principal cast:
Alison Hargreaves
James Ballard
Tom Ballard
Kate Ballard
Daniele Nardi
Stefania Pederiva
Country: UK
Classification: M
Runtime: 107 mins.
Australian release date: Releases in select cinemas from 20 February 2022 and on Digital Download from 16 March.
The Last Mountain, directed by Chris Terrill, begins by relating the story of Alison Hargreaves, a famous British alpinist who, in 1995, set herself the challenge of climbing three of the highest mountains in the world in the same year - Everest, K2 and Kangchenjunga - unaided, without oxygen and alone. Her first achievement was successfully reaching the summit of Mount Everest in May; she then moved on to K2 in August, again reaching the mountain’s peak but, tragically, while descending she was caught in a storm and perished. She was 33 and her body has never been found. Naturally, her death devastated her family - husband James ‘Jim’ Ballard and their two young children, Tom, six at the time, and Kate, four - and a few weeks later Jim took the youngsters to K2’s base camp in Pakistan so they could see where their mother had died. He told them that their mum’s spirit remained in the region and this provided some comfort for them. It also gave both Tom and Kate the climbing bug. They fell in love with the mountains and both became mountaineers when they grew up.
Terrill then moves on to Tom’s mountaineering career. He was the first person to climb all the great north faces of the Alps in a single winter and, like his mother, he preferred to climb solo. In 2019, unusually for him, he teamed up with Italian climber Daniele Nardi and the two set out to conquer Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, known as ‘the killer mountain’ because storms and avalanches happen frequently, via a never-climbed route called the Mummery Spur… in winter. They made a number of attempts with two other climbers but, eventually, the others said it was too dangerous and left. Tom and Daniele wouldn’t be deterred, however, and the two men made another attempt. It was to be their last expedition and they died on what some believe was their descent. Their bodies, like Alison’s, have never been recovered. Tom was only 30-years-old and he died in the same mountain range as his mother.
In The Last Mountain, Terrill has created a moving documentary with people who have unselfishly shared their heartache with the rest of the world. He was able to do this because he has filmed the Ballard family for nearly 25 years, first capturing their trek to K2 after the death of Alison in ’95 and then intermittently recording Tom and Kate’s climbing, skiing and snowboarding successes as they matured. After Tom’s tragic demise, Kate travelled to Nanga Parbat to come to terms with her grief. She re-united with the Pakistani guide, ‘Big’ Ibrahim, who carried her on the trek to K2 all those years before but, on this occasion, they walked the trail together. Kate talks about the devastating loss she felt when her brother died and discusses her close relationship with her father, who viewed the challenges faced by his wife and son as, “like playing Russian roulette with a lot of bullets in the chamber.” The film also contains revealing interviews with Tom’s Italian fiancée, Stefania Pederiva, and Daniele Nardi’s biographer.
As you’d expect in a documentary of this nature, Terrill’s mountain footage is thrilling (at times, you get vertigo just sitting in your seat) and, often, extremely beautiful. This is a story that is compelling, not only because of the vertiginous experience but also the filmmaker’s sincere respect for two courageous people who were determined to face danger to fulfill their desires. Some may view this as reckless ambition but it is an ambition shared by many who devote their lives to conquering the world’s most difficult peaks. The standard response to the perennial question, “Why climb a mountain?” is always, “Because it’s there,” but The Last Mountain goes further in trying to understand what drives someone to push safe boundaries in life. Tom himself always struggled to explain what drove him to climb: “It’s just something inside,” he said. “I feel at one with mountains - like a moving rock or piece of ice.” Watching the extraordinary ease with which he climbs, you begin to get an inkling of what he felt.