Meru

"Meru," a documentary by three famed mountain climbers, follows their serial attempts at the once unsurmountable Mount Meru. No climber (or, better yet, fool) had ever conquered its terrifying peak, aptly named Shark's Fin.

The featured trio of climbers (Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk) were no less victim to Mount Meru's challenges. Considered amongst big-wall climbers as the ultimate climb -- perhaps so challenging it ought not to be climbed at all -- the mountain in northern India commands a 21,000 foot perch above the Ganges River with no sherpa in sight.

Painfully captured in the film's first leg, their first attempt in 2008 quickly evolved from a planned seven-day climb into a 20-day trap. After an immobilizing four-day storm exhausted their food and energy, the crestfallen, frostbitten climbers turned back just 100 meters short of the peak.

Would you have blamed this trio if they embraced defeat after just one go? There wouldn't be a documentary if they had; the remainder of the film, shot years later, is a successful take two.

For viewers outside the esoteric perspective of deft mountain climbing, the impact of "Meru" isn't simply felt by seeing them champion an impossible climb. To the masses, the mountaintop is superfluous -- just one of many. Instead, the thrill exists by seeing the climbers resolve their collective mania.

Helmed by Anker, you'll watch the group outrightly risk familial responsibility, and more acutely their own well being, in their ill-advised journey to finally accomplishing the one climb plaguing them all. What you'll witness -- in sub-zero temperatures -- is the thawing of their obsession.

You're not watching them reach the top -- you're watching them get over it.

If healthy resolution isn't enough to keep you entertained, surely the crisp shots of unseen, icy vistas are sufficient. Also knitted between frigid, breathtaking backdrops are snippets from the climbers' loved ones and anecdotes from their past, all bringing the plot more personality and depth than Mount Meru's heights alone.

"Why do we do this?" mutters Anker at one point mid-climb. "For the view," he muses, "for the view."

Laugh to yourself, too, once you realize that no fourth "camera" man exists on the climb; the borderline climbers managed to film each stunning segment through frozen fingers, toes and tears all on their own, together.