‘Top of the Gods’ Review: On the (Mountain) Heights

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The animation takes viewers to places where cameras don’t travel easily, to the tops of the world’s highest mountains, ““Peak of the Gods” French adaptation of a Japanese manga.

The object that sets the plot in motion is precisely a camera: At a bar in Kathmandu, a photojournalist named Fukamachi (voiced by Damien Boisseau) is approached by a stranger eager to sell the camera that George Mallory claims to have brought. Everest in 1924. Mallory and her climbing partner Andrew Irvine did not survive, but the footage they took may answer the question of whether they have reached the summit. When Fukamachi later spots a reclusive Japanese climber, Habu (voiced by Éric Herson Macarel and Lazare Herson Macarel of different ages), Vest grabs the Pocket Kodak and suspects the device may be legitimate.

Using a slightly “Citizen Kane”-like approach to structure, the first half of the film oscillates between flashbacks to Habu’s life as Fukamachi investigates what motivated Habu’s disappearance and the camera’s content serves as the functional equivalent of Rosebud. Patrick Imbert, who made his feature directorial debut, works with a light color palette and a simplicity of line and movement that seems to owe more to certain anime artists than the textured illustrations of the original manga. Imbert is said to have been inspired by “Grave of the Fireflies” filmmaker Isao Takahata, among others.

The current action of this time-lapse movie is skillfully placed several years before the unmentioned real-life discovery of Mallory’s body, without a camera. in 1999. In limited terms – capturing the physicality of mountain climbing in the setting of ethereal animation – “The Peak of the Gods” is distinctive.

Summit of the Gods
Rated PG. French, with subtitles. Working time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Watch on Netflix.

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