Directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelhi on remarkable documentary 'Meru'
Husband and wife Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelhi recount the life-altering journey of three mountaineers and how they prefer living life on the edge.
Tucked away in the Garwhal Himalayas in north India lies The Meru Peak mountain. The highest point of Meru is known as the 'Shark's Fin.' Situated at 21,850 feet high, between the Thalay Sagar and Shivling mountains, the 'Shark's Fin', is not easily reached by even the most experienced climbers.
In 2008, avid climbers Jimmy Chin, Conrad Anker and Renan Ozturk attempted to climb the Meru to traverse the infamous route to the “Shark's Fin” but failed. In 2011, determined to fulfill their dream, the climbers vowed to try again, risking hunger, pain and their lives along the way.
The journey Chin, Anker, and Ozturk made is the basis for the new American documentary Meru, which chronicles both climbing attempts through personal and exclusive camera footage and interviews. The film is co-directed by Chin and his wife, documentary filmmaker Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. “It was critical to us that it felt authentic and true to the core climbing community,” says Chin. “We wanted the film to transcend the documentary genre and speak to a mainstream audience.”
Having captured his first experience of attempting to climb the mountain in 2008, Chin was determined to chronicle his second journey by developing a documentary film with the aim of authentically depicting the experience making the perilous journey.
Mid-way through the development process, Chin showed footage to Vasarhelyi – whose previous films include the award-winning documentaries A Normal Life (2003) and Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love (2008) – who was immediately determined to get on board as co-director. “There was something special about Meru in the skill set of both the level of the climbing and the level of the filmmaking,” said Vasarhelyi. “One of our real hopes was to do justice to a story that filled out this climbing experience for people who may not be familiar with climbing, like me. We always wanted people to identify with their journey and find their experiences compelling.”
Chin's climbing expeditions include the Karakoram Mountains of Pakistan, the Chang Tang Plateau in Tibet and climbing Mount Everest four times. He has also completed expeditions across Tanzania, Chad, Borneo, South Africa, China, and Mali as well as dedicating time as a filmmaker and photographer for the National Geographic. Conrad Anker - Chin's companion on the journey towards Meru's peak - is considered one of the most experienced climbers and mountaineers in the world of outdoor sports. He has climbed Everest, as well as Latok in Pakistan and the Kichatna Spires in Alaska. In 1999, Anker located the body of legendary British climber George Mallory, who went missing on Mount Everest in 1924.
Renan Ozturk – the youngest of the climbing trio – has also travelled across some of the world's most intrepid locations and peaks including the Jungles of Borneo, Joshua Tree, the Indian Creek and the Trango Tower in Pakistan. “Leading a life in the mountains and doing what climbers do, you have a pretty close relationship with death” states Chin. “A lot of the decisions that you make in these situations are life and death.”
While Chin received a hand-on experience as the director of Meru, his co-director was not present for any of the footage or principal photography – a first time for Vasarhelyi. “The edit will never compare to what it was like to film it, but there was a challenge to bring out their emotional story”, she says. “The environment in which they were filming was extreme - short takes, dangling in the air – and even though the footage was remarkable, there wasn't much of it.” However, while Vasarhelyi depicts the challenges of making the film, she also stated how it became a blessing in disguise. “It was, in a way, actually liberating because it became this structural puzzle that I wanted to figure out.”
Meru premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival where it received critical praise as well as the U.S. Audience Documentary Award – an experience both Chin and Vasarhelyi describe as the “most amazing night of our lives.”
“I don't think you understand the film for what it is until you screen it for a real live audience,” recounts Chin. “The first night screening it was electric - it’s like seeing it for the first time because you get to feel what the viewers see.” Vasarhelyi also describes winning the U.S. Documentary Award as an almost surreal occurrence. “It’s also the scale: three guys are on this climb and then all of a sudden you’re watching this movie - now hundreds of thousands - and it’s amazing.”
Chin and Vasarhelyi describe Meru, and the experience of making it, a true “passion project” - one that explores an array of professional, personal and life-altering issues.
“Documentarians dream of having this much drama, disappointments and emotional ups and downs” explains Vasarhelyi. “The human journey is what we were focusing on: this isn’t just about adrenaline; they are complicated human beings.” She adds, “ It’s so easy to assume that they’re crazy. We may not fully understand why they do it but we respect it, and that's why their story is so honest.”