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The Summit of the Gods Movie Review

The Summit of the Gods is a 2021 French animated adventure film directed by Patrick Imbert. It is a very good movie that features stunning hand-drawn animation.

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“The mountains aren’t a goal, they’re just a path“

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Japanese photo reporter Fukamachi accidentally comes across a camera that may well have belonged to Mallory, a famous mountaineer who disappeared in 1924. However, a stranger comes along and takes the camera before Fukamachi can see the film.

I’d thought at first that the movie was based on a true story, but that isn’t the case. It is mostly made-up with some real-life people thrown in for good measure. Based on a Japanese manga, the movie has that wonderful Japanese Ghibli quality to it while still being a French production, which was a very interesting mixture.

The second half of the movie explores why these people climb. In fact, it doesn’t quite explore as far as it just acknowledges that this urge is strong and unexplained. There are some amazing quotes in the last act of the movie, but most of the remainder of the film isn’t as sophisticated. I loved the first half’s adventurous aspects, but still the movie has so many characters in it that it fails to properly develop any of them.

The protagonist is memorable and well realized, but others not so much. The most heartbreaking moment in the movie came when that young boy whom a climber brought along with him died. That was unexpected and a catalyst for some very tragic, disturbing imagery in his ghost appearances. Those scenes on the mountain are all stupendous, but the movie also focuses way too heavily on the city scenes, which ground its pace to a halt.

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The Summit of the Gods is very well scored, solidly directed and its voice cast did a pretty good job. The dialogue is pretty good and I loved those historical elements incorporated into the picture. The movie needed a longer runtime and tighter pacing, though. But when it comes to its animation, it is absolutely incredible. It offers a further proof that hand-drawn animation can be just as powerful as CGI is when it comes to creating suspenseful action moments on the mountain. Those mountain sequences were breathtakingly naturalistic and gorgeous and I wish that the character designs were as strong.