All language subtitles for Dark Glow of the Mountains - Werner Herzog (1984)

GASHERBRUM, THE LUMINOUS MOUNTAIN

In June 1984, the mountaineer
Reinhold Messner organized...

...an expedition in
the mountains of the Karakorum.

Hans Kammerlander, on the right
of the picture, was with him.

Their objective: Two summits
in the chain of the Gasherbrums

all two at few more of
8000 meters of altitude.

Here is the Gasherbrum 1.

Gasherbrum means
"THE LUMINOUS MOUNTAIN."

Their idea was to climb
the two mountains,

one after the other, without
stopping, without stationary camp

and without oxygen, without
anything other than a backpack.

Messner already
climbed them separately.

Here is the Gasherbrum 2.

I don't have a true profession.
I didn't learn anything particular.

I made a lot of things
who take the liberty to live.

It is everything I need.

I finance my expeditions
thanks to mountaineering equipment.

I don't need anything else.

I am very happy
not to have a profession.

I think that otherwise one renounces
to all creative activity.

I grew up on a farm
in mountain in the South Tyrol.

I helped my father
on our small farm.

My mother died when I was
very young.

My father was not
of good health.

Then I worked as a
bricklayer for 5 years

I also had to
take care of housework.

What was the housework?

The usual works of a
farm, I took care of everything.

I continue again when me
follow home

Now, I work
as mountain guide in the summer

and as a skiing
professor in the winter.

And I have a lot of time
in the spring and the fall

to climb
and to participate in expeditions.

Our idea was not to
to achieve a movie on mountaineering

What we wanted to discover
it was what happens...

in the head of the mountaineers
when they rush in...

...of the enterprises as extreme.

What fascination drives them
to these summits.

These mountains and these summits
do they not exist at the bottom,

in the soul of each
of us?

Here we are in Skardu in
the north of Pakistan

the last accessible city
by car or by plane.

We buy some supplies with
Rozi Ali, carrier and cook

a friend of Reinhold Messner for
numerous expeditions.

The selection of the carriers
takes place the following morning.

Many have participated in the
previous ascensions of Messner.

Most are the Baltises, of the
mountains of north Pakistan.

Just after Skardu,
the road stops.

The provisions are brought
by Jeep until Dasso.

From there until the base camp
there are 150 kilometers on foot.

The last 60 kilometers
take place on a glacier.

The camp is going to be set up at
an altitude of about 5000 m.

After 5 days we
find a place to stop.

It is a source of water
hot sulfurous,

the last real bath
for a long time.

That doesn't look worse
that our other expeditions.

Of course we don't know
if we will have the strength

the staying and even the nerves
that we will need.

Since it has never been attempted,
we lack reference.

I climbed the 8000 before,

but two 8000 have never
been climbed at one time

We are some sorts
of guinea pigs. We leave...

without knowing if we
won't be exhausted.

We may become mad
not holding more standing.

In this case we would be
obligated to come down.

Maybe the fact we
have climbed the first summit,

the desire to win our bet,
will give us

enough strength and power
to climb the second summit.

If we have a lot of luck
and if we are in shape,

if the conditions of
are ideal,

if we are in shape
physically and emotionally,

we can succeed.

For soccer players,
the friendship forgets itself on the field.

You train a team
as the other.

Is it necessary
to be friends?

Could speak yourselves
to this aspect?

How long have you
known each other?

5 or 6 years,

since I worked
as a mountain guide

in his mountaineering school

We've went on expeditions
together for 3 years.

Are you close friends?

I would not say it,
we know each other very well

...and I chose Hans
for this expedition

among all the mountaineers
that I know personally.

Hans is one of the only ones
I think that is capable of it.

I've participated in about
30 expeditions

and I still choose my partners
in the same way.

Without being necessarily friends,
I always have 100% confidence

in the cleverness of the climbers,

...their intuitive knowledge
of the atmospheric conditions,

and of the strengths of nature like
the avalanches, the storms.

I know that they have as much
of that trust in me.

Otherwise sooner or later
we would have failed.

One of us would be responsible
for the death of the other.

Each of us assumes one
personal responsibility.

There is not an alternative.

I cannot bring myself
to ask someone...

to join me without being
sure thathet has it in head.

We join the glacier to one
altitude of about 4000 m.

The carriers have already collected...

...the last pieces
of wood for fire.

All have fear of
what is going to arrive.

After 10 days of walking
through the throats and the glacier,

the massages like
this one makes are good.

Ibrahim is a carrier worker

and although most of the
others have already left us,

he wanted to remain with me
a while longer.

He massaged each of us
during the walk of approach

and now then before we
go begin the ascension,

he takes it very seriously.

Now he pulls
my fingers one by one.

If I understood right, he
uses his father's technique.

We are relatively
secure here to the base camp.

Yes, we are secure.
It is a real pleasure.

But higher, the dangers
are numerous.

Just to the over the base camp...

...there are the hundreds of crevasses.

A few has one farther
stiff enough partition

and then, naturally,
there are the storms close to the summit.

At the time of my lone ascension
in the Nanga Parbat, in 1978,

I had an incredible luck.

Now he pulls my
the ears.

I climbed all day,
relatively quickly

and I bivouaced
on a s�rac...

to an altitude of about 6500 m
in a well sheltered place.

The following morning at 5 o'clock,
I folded the camp,

there was a light tremor.
I immediately noticed it.

That instant an incredible
avalanche fell.

Just below,
an enormous block of s�rac...

...of the size of one
p�t� of houses...

detached itself and flew
down into the valley.

My base camp that I saw...

...yesterday as one red point,

...was covered with snow.

Then the friends at the base
camp told to me that snow...

...had fallen for one half-hour.

I had luck
to be awake.

If it had arrived the eve

I would have flown off with the avalanche.

A "classic expedition"
that would like to climb these mountains

would have to resort to carriers
to transport 1 or 2 tons

of material and provisions.

They would have numerous people
with camps at different altitudes.

The climbers would make
of the displacements

of a tent to the other,
of a camp to the other, like a pyramid.

The strongest being able to
then to reach the summit.

We practice, on the contrary,
an alpine style...

We have a small tent
and only these clothes.

If we are too hot, we put
them in our bags

A fine rope, two picks,

a special pick
that can stretch out,

and a pick made of titanium
very light.

And this strange rope?

It is not a real rope.

We use it in duplicate
when we insure.

But we won't use it much.

Each of us is
responsible for himself.

For the essential us
let's climb without cording.

Can we see the camera
what you carry with you up high?

We carry a camera with
us, a small Bell & Howell

in order to shoot the summit and
as testimony of the expedition.

How many toes
have you lost, Hans?

I have all mine
thanks to God.

Me n' lost some again
none because of the frost.

I have four on one foot,
I lost the other.

Will be you in radio
contact with the camp?

No, not a radio,
it would be too heavy

anyway no one here
could not come to rescue us.

It is our risk and if
one doesn't arrive there, it is like that.

There remains only two
carriers in the camp.

Rozi Ali, the cook prepares
of the chapati from the flat breads.

On my 1st exp�dition
himalayenne in 1970 in the Nanga Parbat.

Of the four participants,
I am the only one still alive.

A German, Peter Scholz
and Felix Kr�n, an Austrian,

perished several years after.

My brother died during
the expedition in the Nanga Parbat.

Later, in 1972,
I was in the Manaslu, to Nepal...

a member of the expedition died
of cold weather just under the summit

and another became mad
and also perished.

During all these years,
I met some mountaineers,

I learned two or three years
later than they had died

...in big expeditions.

I think that the fact we want
to climb mountains...

...is a sign of
cerebral degeneration.

So many people that must
to work hard to live,

to cultivate small fields
as mountain people,

they don't think about climbing
on mountains.

They are afraid of the mountains,
of the avalanches, of the storms,

and especially of the torrents
that destroy all.

My neighbors, in Villn�ss,
continue to tell me that I am mad,

that it doesn't make sense
to climb the mountains,

that I could use my
energy for something else

and they don't have it
completely wrong.

And you, what do you think?

You think that you are not
quite sound of mind?

I think that all artists,
the creative people, are mad,

even the art and the creativeness
are shapes of degeneration.

The fascination animated me
for so long.

The fascination for the altitude.

In the beginning, it
was only curiosity.

To what that resembles when the zone
is some death higher?

That one feels before
a partition of 5000 meters?

But I cannot answer
the question to know...

...why I make it

not more that to the one of
to know why I live

and I never asked
the question when I climbed.

The question doesn't exist because
my whole being is the answer.

When I am lengthened in
my tent I sometimes think

Reason is that that
do I make it?

Reason is that that I don't
remain here, below?

My ambition is already
relatively satisfied.

But in spite of it all, two
or three times per year...

...I need to measure myself.

If I climb a 3000 m mountain
in the Alps

...I don't have the opportunity for it.

I don't know how
go turn this expedition

...toward the two Gasherbrums,

what will be my inferior
relation with her.

The very solitude
if we are two...

...pass the one that one can
to feel in an empty piece

or in anonymity
of a big city.

You achieve to what point
you are small, vulnerable.

Sometimes I think that
I don't have anymore need for it

but after several months,
the desire comes back

like one who's hooked and
cannot stop.

Maybe the climbing is
a morbid obsession.

Is what it means and
it is a sensitive question,

that this type of climbing understands
also a research of the death?

I believe that one interprets
as a research of the death

for a lot of activities
that go to the limits.

I never wanted
to kill myself while climbing.

If it has ever happened to me
to have similar thoughts,

it is in completely
different situations

but never while climbing
a mountain.

I am persuaded that someone
who is on a mountain...

...cannot think of death
while he climbs it.

Two Spanish of an expedition
toward the Gasherbrum 2 appear.

After weeks of struggle and
of snow storms

they should have quit right
below the summit.

They were exhausted and cautioned
us of deep snow

and of the avalanches that
raged higher up.

You think that because of your
closeness with your brother,

this one could be
dead to your place?

You would have an attitude
different before his death?

I had a different attitude
before the death in general

because I am mountaineer
and maybe because of his death

even though I sometimes have the
impression is is alive again.

When I see the mountains
that we climbed together.

I made the most difficult climbings
with him.

on the Heiligkreuzkofel
in the Dolomites,

we lived through some extreme
situations for both of us.

Each was was responsible
in the event the other tomb

and this relation was
so intense

that we would not be able to
to have separated again.

When I see these
partitions today,

I are not able to more climb them
without my toes

I have the impression of him
always in life.

I don't have the feeling
that he died to my place

I have the impression that it is
myself that died

during the expedition.

During the whole coming down,
I told myself:

"All is finished, we are not able to
not to go farther."

Before abrupt partitions,
we didn't have a rope.

What was necessary to make?

II had there of the dozens of moments
in the coming down...

...where I was sure that
all was finished.

And back in the valley
after his disappearance

after having looked for him
all night long

and to have waited in vain
until the following day

I didn't worry anymore
whether I was going to die.

During the rest of the journey,
I didn't think anymore

I didn't feel the pain.

I was barefoot.

My swollen feet didn't go back
in my shoes.

Then I fainted and
when I awakened later

I was stunned to see
that I was living.

And, on the return back home,

I had the feeling that my life had
toppled with this tragedy.

How did you announce
the news to your mother?

My mother understood it better
that anyone

and yet it was very hard.

We are going to leave now
and if the weather improves

as the weather report announced it
with one monsoon in the southeast

we should be back
in about one week

so all happens well.

If we don't appear
at the end of 10 days

you will be able to make come
the carriers and to leave.

You have money for the carriers
Rozi Ali knows everything of them.

Money for the journey is to
Rawalpindi to the Miss Davis Hotel.

You will find money for the case
of a mission by helicopter.

All is organized and arranged
so that from the moment...

...where you will take
the responsibility of the expedition...

...you can receive
the government's money.

If we don't come back from here
two weeks, it will mean

that we finished under an
avalanche or are dead of weariness.

Don't search for us,
no one will ever find us.

Hans, what should we do
with your personal belongings

...in the tent?
The photos and...

There is not much
to say some,

the best thing would be to throw
it all in a crevasse.

The morning, according to them, they
were 6 kilometers from us

or one thousand meters over the camp.

They arrived to the summit
of the Gasherbrum 2

...two and a half days later.

Then the weather changed.

The summit disappeared
in a storm of snow.

They arrive to the summit of the Gasherbrum 1.

After 7 and a half days of waiting
anxiously, they emerged from the glacier.

Rozi Ali had spent the last
foru nights praying.

Reinhold, how did
it happen?

The last two days were...
We succeeded!

Could you remove your glasses?

That is himself he passes
these last two days?

We reached the summit
yesterday, in spite of the storm.

We found it in the
middle of the storm.

It was the hardest part.

We underwent winds of
80 to 100 km/h all day

and we hurt
to recover the tent.

The only reason for which
we came down again yesterday

it is because we wanted
to descend by a precise bone.

Yesterday, midway,
it was rotted...

and today also
because it was too hot.

We had indeed
the worst conditions...

...meteorologically conceivable.

If we had not had
as much luck in the beginning,

we would never have succeeded.

Hans, how was that for you?

I think that if you do that
kind of thing often enough,

the best thing to make,
it is to write your will.

We really had
a lot of luck

these last two days,
it was the madness...

I think that no one will
repeat it in this decade.

A hole of water in the glacier
of hundred meter thick.

The temperature is close to the frost.

The risk is that the water that springs
disappears in ice.

If one slips, they would be
irreparably lost.

Reinhold, whereas you sit down
naked and vulnerable before us.

I would like to ask
a simple question:

What was the goal of it all?

I don't know. I never wounder
why I do it.

It is thus for the other
madness that I committed.

I would not like
to know the answer.

I have the feeling that I can
write on these enormous partitions

...of 3000 or 4000 meter high,

as a professor writes on
a blackboard with a chalk.

But I don't only make
that to write these lines

...of the imaginary lines,
I live these lines.

I also have the impression that after,
these lines remain there

even though I am the only one that can
feel them, see them

that I live them and nobody else
will ever be able to see them

but they are there and them
will remain forever there.

You can think
of more to climb?

To make quite
something else?

Sometimes, I want to stop
the mountain climbing.

and I imagine that I walk...
for years

Maybe forever, with
the yaks, some carriers

from a Himalayan valley
to another.

To deserts, the forests,
without going nowhere

without watching behind,
without watching ahead

while continuing to walk
until the tip of the world.

It is strange, I have precisely
the same dream.

I would like to have a dog,
a husky with two leather bags

and just to walk until
I went everywhere.

Yes, it is passionate

and I imagine that, more and more
in the next years

sooner or later in my life,
I won't look behind.

And I won't go anywhere
in particular, without destination.

I will walk
until the tip of the world.

I don't know
if it is round or flat

for me the world
never finishes

to a certain moment,
him... stop.

It is then, probably,
when my life will stop,

the world will make in the same way.

We would be able to each follow
the traces of the other.

I am delighted with advance.

The climbing of the mountains
is not anymore important for me.

Especially the climbing.

The important thing is to walk,
to walk, to walk...