The Ghosts Above | Renan Ozturk | Sony Alpha Films

[Music] [Music] [Music] i never wanted to be here but here i am crawling to the roof of the world i came here on a national geographic assignment i couldn't turn down to solve one of the greatest mysteries in exploration and after 20 years of telling himalayan stories and thinking i knew what this mountain was all about this was the climb that changed [Music] everything so [Music] big transition today leaving base camp just trying not to forget anything i'm just going to get rid of this p because the p bottle is probably the most important thing of all i have a lot to pour p right here [Music] sorry yeah i think everest has changed a lot since the early days the 1920s british expeditions were not only inventing high altitude climbing as we know it but also the art of sharing these high mountain cultures with the world their efforts to conquer everest were also the beginning of a complex cultural relationship with the himalayan people a hundred years later i wrestle with how i'm both a champion of indigenous communities and a colonialist as a photographer it's my responsibility to avoid cliches when i'm among cultures i revere such as the sherpa and tibetans [Music] cliches don't honor the depth of their character nor the complexity of their lives we began this journey with a puja the ancient ceremony in which the sherpa asks the mountain permission to pass [Music] seems like more of a party these days a questionable reflection of the commercialization of chomalonga [Music] camp dude it gets real now yeah i think it's gonna start to get pretty hard now [Music] mark's in it is the mastermind of this expedition and one of my oldest mentors in 2017 we traveled together to remote eastern nepal to document a himalayan culture outside the limelight of everest this story is solid gold and i'm super lucky to be the writer on this because it's really easy to be the writer compared to being renowned he's the most out of control yet just got stung in the cheek right through the hood [Music] miracle highway one of the sickest hikes i've ever done went on before this expedition we were all pretty anti-everest but mark got a tip about the whereabouts of sandy irvin who may have been the first to reach the summit with george mallory in 1924 they disappeared in the mist close to the top and never returned mallory's body was discovered in 1999 by some of my closest friends irvin's body is still lost on the north face his camera is rumored to be in his pocket with a summit picture that could rewrite history it's hard to describe how brutal the altitude is it's something that really doesn't translate well on camera [Music] all right you guys might want to get ready to receive this we've been prepping for months and i wish i felt more organized going up high but the truth of the matter is it's just really hard at altitude and nobody's feeling that great it's kind of constant headaches it's hard to form sentences oh wow that coffee's looking kind of thick oh i need i need it's hard hard to even talk to communicate with the rest of the team are we uh what are we doing today we're waiting for the sun to hit and we're gonna try to make the move to the north pole and it's really really windy out oh we just had some gale force winds take out the solar panel so we have to go to this spot this is very distinctive this horizontal break here in the yellow band and both search areas i think can be oriented relative to this horizontal band everest doesn't get climbed alone these guys are gonna carry some pretty giant loads from 21 000 feet to 23 000 feet which is [Music] insane maybe everest reached a tipping point this year pictures of the conga line jamming the upper mountain went viral around the world yes and the media roared in disapproval but being there i had a different [Music] reaction camaraderie between the teams no one's denied me a fist bump yet try to move fast through this section not to get hit by that thing last few steps to the north pole whoo incredible that's the summit you can see the sun you can see the summit [Music] there's a battle dude that's the hardest thing i've ever done so far just hit a wall how about the rest yeah maybe not enough water or food [Music] with an umbilical cord of fixed ropes in place every inch of the way you can get complacent even confident but that feeling changed when the mountain unleashed your power hitting us with 140 mile an hour winds holy crap [Music] [Music] i'm no stranger to the reality of losing friends in this space and i've also had some close calls a few years back i broke my skull and neck and severed a vertebral artery that affected blood flow to my brain it's questionable now how i'll handle the altitude on this expedition it's just inevitable that someone will get sick first we find out if there's a doctor in baseball yeah see if that person will evaluate nick then we just put it straight to them should this guy get to a lower elevation it's a matter of life force and the moment we get here and start engaging with this mountain our life force is going down and our bodies are literally dying up here i would say even having spent a lifetime in the mountains that i didn't really fully appreciate how big a deal it is to be up there i mean we've got our kicked it's the first time a storm on north coal has made world headlines yeah yeah it was pretty bad going to check on nick no one's really checked in on him for the last 12 hours [Music] wow i feel like we need to be careful because if this is something more serious than we think you know i mean he's sitting here at 17 000 feet and he's not getting better you know this is not conducive to health [Music] embolism is a blood clot yeah it can go into your heart symptoms shortness of breath have a heart attack chest pain on cough yeah it's like his symptoms they they they line up perfectly they kind of do nick had three blood clots in his legs that traveled to his lungs we were super lucky to make the call to evac him when we did before they hit his heart or brain [Music] [Music] the only other time i've tried to tell an ever story was one specifically to bring to light the sherpa perspective on the mountain death seems to always chase the climbing sherpas as they pit themselves against more of the danger to help foreigners on their guided ascents [Music] this disparity of risk has always troubled me on that trip i saw firsthand the senseless deaths of climbing sherpas when 16 died in front of my lens [Music] the sherpas canceled the rest of that climbing season an unprecedented show of defiance demanding better life insurance for families and better wages money [Music] basically the entire advanced base camp is getting extracted and we're heading up the mountain we'll be the only ones up there now what we should do soon is just spend a bit of time talking with the sherpas if possible yeah get lots of little things sorted out yeah are we at a point where we can just lay it all bare now jamie i have a ring okay about a year ago we came up with this idea of coming here to the north side of everest not so much to climb the mountain but to see if we could possibly find um sandy irvine we're probably a little bit in over our heads that's why we're really happy to be here with you guys and have you um support us [Music] they're saying that they didn't they didn't know our plan so it makes their work really hard yeah hambro hammer mistake mantra moff garnish if you spend more than two hours there at three then it will be not good yeah this party turns as far as everyone maybe we can you know just um you know work with them to mold it together into something you know that will work for them basically shanti china any not chadni yohimal um i told them we're not gonna if we don't have peace with these guys we're not yeah we're not going away or not we're making work for them friendship um esto um professional friendship sub under mata fernandi [Music] i feel like we just told them we'll work with you guys we'll do what you need for this trip to to work we're right on the verge of a full-blown mutiny you know thinking from their perspective like i don't know if i would sign up to work on an expedition that wasn't focused on the summit it does seem like the summit might not be the most important to them it's this 8-3 rule because they don't want to get blacklisted yeah we go up to the top and we act like a normal summit team but we scope hozell spot which i see as a fairly minor variation on the root i still a little worried as to like what's gonna happen when it's like mark's got his shirt but next to him on the descent and then mark unclips from the rope and starts descending into the search zone i thought the sherpas would be happy not to summit but i was wrong many on our team could potentially summit for the first time a milestone in their careers and crucial for getting more work after much deliberation we're going up to the next camp all sherps packing up so weather's coming in a little bit not easy the chinese authorities at base camp send word on the radio that a deadly storm is approaching even though we have a perfect forecast to the authorities all the responsibility for our lives depends on the sherpas yeah we obviously want to try [Music] holy the strippers are calling the shots up here because they have to not only support us above 8 300 meters in the death zone but they have to break down all the oxygen on a subsequent trip which is unimaginably difficult they're carrying three times as much as we are a little scary snowstorm above 8 000 meters there are conflicting forecasts it's a really hard day it's hard to regulate temperature i think we've got a ways to go more than we think [Music] there's the yellow band [Music] i can't believe those guys do this with no modern gear by the time we get to high camp everyone is too tired to set up tents so we take shelter and abandon ones that are half frozen into the ice in dumpster dive for food and fuel totally cooked i'm gonna go for the summit it sounds like we might i'm trying to recover so that i can do so that took a lot out of me we made it to 8 300 meters at high camp poised for push to where we think irvine is in the summit hopefully mark can hydrate enough that he can search in the way down it's going to be really hard we're really worked and it's taken a lot out of us just to get to here [Music] [Music] to ground myself i think of my loved ones my home my friends friends of friends my world down there in the haze so distant from this world that they seem like figments of my imagination but they and you are the reasons i'm here to show you how it feels and how it looks it is 10 30. we just slept in some abandoned tents up here in the death zone scrounged some random food and uh against all odds we're launching to try to solve this mystery and maybe even summit it's uh the underdogs parade how you feeling about going rogue at the end of the day let's hope pretty badass those guys climbed they at least made it this far now we're in irvine no further like i don't get it it's your willpower the higher we go the more bodies we see even ones from this season i foolishly throw my pack down and my oxygen regulator cracks on a rock it's horrifying i'm more lethargic immediately [Music] it feels like i'm dying because i am [Music] i distract myself from the pain by looking into the camera the few moments when i can lift it everything that has led me here swirls together in the jet stream hypnotically [Music] hypoxically [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] i stopped maybe 10 feet short of the summit i'm not sure if it's out of fear or respect but i promised myself i would never step on the head of their god we're the only team on either side of the mountain a lucky moment during such a crowded season [Music] [Music] [Music] so we collapse sometimes using bodies as backrests and the sherpas collapse with us concerned for our safety eyeing us carefully so we don't die on their watch but they know we're looking for iron [Music] yes [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] mark can't bear to go on without looking and casts off into the void [Music] i wish for mark's success but also sense the stress of the sherbus we're risking our lives but also their livelihoods just to reorder some names in the record book but for us it was never about who got to the top first it was just a detective story something more than a sonnet i went to hozell spot there was nothing there i went against the sherpas which i feel really bad about i almost didn't go but i spent so much time studying that spot i just had to go there even after going to the summit i seriously this is the hardest day that i've ever had in my life after 24 hours awake back down at high camp 8 300 meters a place of shredded tents and wind strewn garbage the earth's highest dump just below its highest graveyard [Music] a part of me is in awe feeling the privilege of standing on the shoulder of the mother goddess of the mountains able to look out at the entire world another part of me is shell-shocked heartbroken aware now that the ambition it takes to summit everest tends to twist and contort all who come [Music] i never wanted to be here in the death zone surrounded by ghosts but it's so strangely beautiful i can't make myself [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Sony I Alpha Universe

Views: 2,221,034

Keywords: The Ghosts Above, The Ghost Above Full Film, Official Film, Renan Ozturk, renan ozturk moonwalk, the ghosts above everest, renan ozturk everest, sony films, sony alpha films, short film, mount everest, mount everest mystery, mount everest renan ozturk, sony alpha universe, alpha universe, The ghosts above everest movie, alpha universe youtube, sony a7s3 short film

Id: 8G0fNkk4g0A

Length: 36min 24sec (2184 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 02 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/lazyseadog]

So they spent months planning an expedition with the sole purpose of finding the body of Ervine or evidence of Mallory and Ervine's possible summit, but only mention their intentions to the Sherpas once they were at advanced base camp? WTF?

[u/alvarezg]

Tibetans were first.

[u/ub52107]

It was entertaining. I loved the photography and video editing

[u/wookie_cookies]

Really enjoyed the sound track, and the incredible photography\videography. I believe they hid their true intent from the sherpas because they wouldn't be allowed to go roaming on camera on Everest. I like how they shot the dead bodies. Very gross and spooky. Like we pulled up,our priveldged asses and parked on a cadaver while ridiculous white man with a camera chases his own death.

[u/scotlandblueskies]

Some lovely shots. Liked the photographs that were worked through the video.

The film is laced with irony. Ultimately whatever their initial intentions they were lured by the summit or forced by expectation to forego their search. The cynical will say it’s just another film about going up Everest. If it is then at the very least the cinematography is very enjoyable.