NANGA PARBAT
NANGA PARBAT
Germany / 1938 / 20'
NANGA PARBAT
Germany / 1938 / 20'

June 1938. The Nazist, seeking glory, try to conquer the unclimbed Nanga Parbat mountain. The documentary recounting the endeavour is a good black and white silent film with a few subtitles in simple German. It shows the arrival of a Nazi plane, a Ju 52, and the landing of the mountaineers. After traversing a labyrinth of ice, the advanced group of Germans camp IV at 6200 metres where it has to endure five days of violent snowstorms without receiving any help from the third camp. The cameraman shows the departure of the rescure team, dwelling on the swastika on the tail of the plane, which the local population watches with interest while it is being loaded. when the plane fies over the place where the unfortunate mountaineers are trapped, it drops the rescue material and provisions onto the white virgin snows of Nanga Parbat. The spectator is left with the weght, without nostalgia, of a film that was born with the idea of highlighting a triumph and turns into a document of a defeat to be hidden. For this reason the lack of soundtrack is a more than an explicit indication of the significance the film was supposed to have and clamorously failed to achieve.