Farther Than the Eye Can See (2003)
*** (out of 4)
Climbing Mt. Everest is considered the most challenging thing anyone could attempt. Yearly we hear about people who tried but paid with their lives. Erik Weihenmayer dream was to get to the summit of Everest but what makes his story different is the fact that he is blind.
There's no question that the achievement of Weihenmayer is something truly incredible and there were other firsts done on the expedition that is covered in the documentary. If you've seen enough documentaries on Everest you know that the idea of trying to get a blind person up the mountain might seem like suicide and that very subject is discussed here.
We get some great conversations on why Weihenmayer wanted to achieve this goal and why so many were willing to help him. It truly is a pretty remarkable story and the documentary also gives us some terrific HD quality video of the summit, which was great to see (apparently this was another first).
As far as the film goes, I'd be lying if I said it didn't contain some flaws. I really would have liked to learn more on how he was able to get his body in condition to do something like this. We pretty much meet him, he talks about wanting to do it and then he's on the mountain. The film also doesn't have much of a dramatic punch like it should have considering the subject.
With that said, at just fifty minutes the film certainly flies by and the subject itself makes it worth watching.