Everest

AUGUST 3, 1998: Newcity Chicago

Directed by David Breashears, Greg MacGillivray, Stephen Judson.

 A matter-of-fact documentary about people matter-of-factly testing their resolve against a cold-hearted killer. "I like to do my falling down early on, "laughs Spanish climbing goddess Araceli Segarra, before tiptoeing over a crevasse on a precarious steel ladder.

The three featured climbers have good enough reasons to climb: Segarra wants to be the first Spanish woman to the top; Jamling Norgay wants to honor the memory of his father (a Sherpa who climbed with Hillary); and Ed Viesturs wants to celebrate his honeymoon oxygen-free. But those reasons seem puny beneath the looming peak, and punier still when the team crosses paths with the ill-fated group featured in John Krakauer's "Into Thin Air."

Tears are shed, but not sentimental tears or tears of total, rational understanding. They can't be: reason sends you hurrying back down to base camp. Even as the climbers reveal their emotions-"I was more tired than I'd ever been in my life"-they still have the quality of understatement. I wasn't left so much inspired by the scenery or even thrilled by the few scenes of laborious climbing (many weeks compressed into less than an hour can't help but feel slim). Instead, the mountain itself gets upstaged by the human brain's extraordinary ability to block out danger for stakes that clearly aren't worth it.

 Co-written by Tim Cahill and narrated by Liam Neeson. IMAX. (Ellen Fox)