Iceland review - 2019, Page 53

51
Iceland Review
enough to try. Mountaineers, not to be confounded
with casual hikers, live for the rush granted by
ascending the world’s highest peaks. “It’s a mod-
ern-day adventure,” Leifur admits. “It’s an experi-
ence that you can both create and participate in.
It’s all-consuming. Once you go into the mountains,
you can’t turn back.”
Documentary filmmaker and longtime moun-
taineering enthusiast Ingvar Ágúst Þórisson
has been interested in the story of Kristinn and
Þorsteinn for many years. No stranger to the mys-
terious allure of mountain ranges, his 2009 film
Ama Dablam: Beyond the Void follows the journey
of an American climber on a harrowing expedition.
For Ingvar, the idea to make a film about the late
Icelandic climbers was always on his radar.
“I remember when they went missing and imme-
diately felt like I wanted to make film about their
story. This feeling persisted for many years, but I
just never had the opportunity to do it. Two years
ago, I met with Kristinn’s father about potentially
moving forward with the project, but he didn’t want
this. He didn’t want to go through the trauma of the
experience again,” Ingvar explains.
As an artist who has worked closely with moun-
taineers before, Ingvar remains removed from the
immediacy of their commitment to the mountain
while simultaneously witnessing its irresistibility.
His craft has given him unique perspective into the
minds of these individuals, in which he sees, “Total
fearlessness. It seems that they feel compelled
toward some quest for the unknown.”
It is not difficult to imagine the thrill of climbing
a mountain or the rush of the sensory extremes
that come along with it; likewise, it is not a stretch
to understand that what lies at the root of the
activity – exploration – is imprinted within us all,
elemental, tied irrecoverably to our nature as
human beings. Regardless of whether or not we feel
compelled to climb a mountain, one would be hard-
pressed to ignore the relationship that we each
have with a sense of exploration, and ultimately
with the unknown.
“Back in the 80s, one of the boldest ways to
face the unknown was by conquering a mountain,”
Ingvar claims. “Now the unknown is all about con-
quering yourself on that mountain. You can become
addicted to it in a way, being up there. It’s a kind
of meditation – you’re alone in the world and want
only to continue seeking out and conquering these
remote, magical places.”
Jón echoes this sentiment and admits that,
“When you have spent time at such high altitudes
along uncharted terrain, you experience certain
sensations and your memories of those moments
become perpetual.”
Likening mountain climbing to an addiction is
one way of understanding the urge that Ingvar and
Jón describe, though I prefer to look past such a
deflecting simplification and to ask why such risks
are taken in the face of all logic; why would a man
in the prime of his life, with a baby on the way, so
willingly put his future on the line? Does this not
signify brute disregard for the realities at hand or
merely a need, one as necessary breath itself, to
venture to the outer reaches of the unknown and do
something that matters, something to be remem-
bered by?
“You have to feel the will to do such a thing,”
Leifur explains. “It has to come from your core.
Climbing is a slow coming reward. It offers a dif-
ferent kind of admiration because when you’re out
there, you can never let down your guard, you can
WHY WOULD A MAN IN THE PRIME OF HIS LIFE,
WITH A BABY ON THE WAY, SO WILLINGLY PUT
HIS FUTURE ON THE LINE?
Þorsteinn at a camp
in Pumori, Nepal.