vivaldi in "the summit: a chronicle of stones"
I had the good fortune of seeing "The Summit: A Chronicle of Stones" at this year's Eiga Sai, the Japanese Film Festival.
The movie is gorgeous (too bad amazon doesn't have it in stock), the cinematography—a sweeping panorama of mountains, peaks, and breathtaking summit views—astonishing. It reminded me of why men and women risk lives and climb mountains. There's not one badly acted scene. And the movie celebrates the much vaunted Japanese virtues of patience, single-minded commitment, perseverance. Add wry voice here, though I'm not being sarcastic —envious is more like it. Released as "Mt. Tsurugidake" in some markets, it tells the true story of a group of Japanese military mountain climbers tasked to scale the treacherous Mt. Tsurugidake, measure it, and "complete a map of their nation."
They succeed. The movie presents the men's dogged persistence and sacrifice with so much elegance I nearly cried at the end. Anyway, it all happened in pre-War Japan, and so I allowed myself to enjoy the movie's take on Japanese heroism and set aside thoughts of their atrocities to Filipinos during the war. (Nota bene: I still have relatives and friends who, as children, actually lived through the Japanese occupation.)
My one argument with the movie is its score. The Japanese are famous for their love of western classical music. And maybe since this film's producers wanted to pay tribute to Baroque music as well, they heavily used Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and Handel's Laschia Ch'io Piangga, orchestrally arranged.
The movie is gorgeous (too bad amazon doesn't have it in stock), the cinematography—a sweeping panorama of mountains, peaks, and breathtaking summit views—astonishing. It reminded me of why men and women risk lives and climb mountains. There's not one badly acted scene. And the movie celebrates the much vaunted Japanese virtues of patience, single-minded commitment, perseverance. Add wry voice here, though I'm not being sarcastic —envious is more like it. Released as "Mt. Tsurugidake" in some markets, it tells the true story of a group of Japanese military mountain climbers tasked to scale the treacherous Mt. Tsurugidake, measure it, and "complete a map of their nation."
They succeed. The movie presents the men's dogged persistence and sacrifice with so much elegance I nearly cried at the end. Anyway, it all happened in pre-War Japan, and so I allowed myself to enjoy the movie's take on Japanese heroism and set aside thoughts of their atrocities to Filipinos during the war. (Nota bene: I still have relatives and friends who, as children, actually lived through the Japanese occupation.)
My one argument with the movie is its score. The Japanese are famous for their love of western classical music. And maybe since this film's producers wanted to pay tribute to Baroque music as well, they heavily used Vivaldi's The Four Seasons and Handel's Laschia Ch'io Piangga, orchestrally arranged.
I love Handel and Vivaldi, and count The Four Seasons as one of my entry drugs into the intoxicating world of classical music (ha ha, cheesy, I know). Used as running soundtrack in this film, though, they were just too much. I would have thought the soaring Four Seasons would be perfect fit to a story about mountains and glorious heights, but, oh, did this movie prove me wrong. The effect was overwhelming. It's like what we Filipinos say about eating too much sweets: nakakatusing.
Nevertheless. I hope next year's Eiga Sai will still feature it. I am definitely going to watch it again.
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