In the Shadow of the Goddess of Mother Earth

Summary

This documentary film is an homage to the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest (8,848 m) and the Czech-Slovak mountain climbers who’ve reached or tried to reach its peak. This giant mountain, called Chu-mu-lang-ma or Sagarmatha in local languages, is named after the geographer Sir George Everest (4. 7. 1790 – 1. 12. 1866). The first person to reach its peak on 29 May 1953 was New Zealander Edmund Percival Hillary (20. 7. 1919 – 11. 1. 2008) and Sherpa Norgay Tenzing (15. 5. 1914 – 9. 5. 1986). – The testimony of top athletes are illustrated by amateur shots from private archives, maps of selected routes and a chronological overview of the expeditions in 1980 to 2002: not all of the expeditions reached their desired goal and not all of their members returned home... An especially tragic expedition occurred in 1988 when Dušan Becík, Peter Božík, Jaroslav Jaško and Jozef Just perished. The mountain climbers reveal the risks and “cruelty” that they encounter in the mountains: they often have to struggle with hopelessly injured or dying friends, abandon them in difficult moments or carry down dead corpses and bury them. They condemn the attempts of the Nepal government to commercialise ascents to the mountain in which clients are "carried up”. The country does receive considerable profits (up to fifty thousand dollars per person), but the moral values, which mountain climbers appreciate in "dialogue" and harmony with the mountain, are thus devalued. (This film is part of the Everest series.)