How is it possible in the 1950s for a housewife and mother to sacrifice herself for her family and then leave house and home to climb peaks in the Himalayas? Through an uncle by marriage, the Flemish Ellen Vermeulen accidentally stumbled across the Frenchwoman Maire-Louise Chapelle and her archives. It goes without saying that Chapelle’s family struggled with her decision and after her death tried to blot out her memory.
‘How come a woman I never even knew could have such an impact on my life?’ Vermeulen asks herself. She calls it an obsession, which is somewhere between a fascination and an irritation. To find an answer, she follows in Chapelle’s footsteps and undertakes the same expedition as her French heroine who, in 1952, went to Chaukhamba (7,138 metres) in the Indian Garhwal mountains.
We hear a voice reading from Chapelle’s diary and the cool voice-over by Vermeulen, who, at the end of the day, is really trying to find herself. The factual and technical details in this meditative documentary are secondary to this inner quest.
