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6/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. The Son of the White Mountain remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have a thing for old movies where people do actually dangerous things on skis, then yes. You should watch it today if you're bored of CGI and want to see what real mountain air looked like on film a century ago.
Outdoor types will probably dig the scenery. People who need a fast plot or high-quality sound will probably hate it within ten minutes.
Luis Trenker is the main guy here. He doesn't just act in these movies; he basically lives them.
He has this way of looking at a mountain peak like it's his long-lost best friend. It is a bit intense, honestly.
The story is a romance, sort of. But the romance feels like it’s just there to give the characters something to talk about when they aren't climbing rocks.
Renate Müller is in this too. She brings a bit of softness to all the jagged edges and ice.
I noticed the way the wind sounds in this movie. It’s a very 1930s kind of sound, very tinny and sharp.
It makes the cold feel much more real than modern movies do. You can almost feel the frostbite through the screen.
There’s a scene where they are skiing down a slope and the camera is just flying. I wonder how many people actually fell down making this.
The skis look like giant pieces of flat wood. I don't know how they steered those things at all.
Felix Bressart shows up and he's usually the funny one. He’s like a little breath of air when the movie gets too serious about its mountains.
Sometimes the movie stops to just look at the clouds. It reminds me a bit of the atmosphere in The Blue Moon, where the setting is more important than the people.
I found myself looking at the background extras a lot. They all look like they were pulled right out of a local village and told to stand there.
They have these heavy wool sweaters that look incredibly itchy. I kept thinking about how long it would take for those clothes to dry out after a day in the snow.
There is a moment near the middle where the editing gets real choppy. It’s like they lost a few feet of film and just decided to keep going anyway.
It adds to the charm, I guess. It feels like a real object that has been sitting in a basement for a long time.
The plot about the romance is pretty standard stuff. Boy meets girl, boy loves mountain, girl is worried about the mountain.
It’s not as dark as something like The Scarlet Shadow. It stays pretty much in the adventure lane.
One of the guys, maybe it was Michael von Newlinsky, has this reaction shot that is way too long. He just stares off into the distance for what feels like a minute.
I think he was supposed to be looking at a beautiful vista, but it looks like he forgot his lines. Or maybe he was just tired of the altitude.
The music is very loud. It swells up every time someone looks at a peak.
It’s a bit much, but it fits the dramatic energy Trenker is always putting out. The man is a force of nature.
I liked the scenes in the little mountain huts. They feel cozy and cramped, and you can see the smoke from the pipes.
It’s a very specific kind of world that doesn't really exist anymore. Everything feels heavy and made of wood or stone.
Some of the dialogue is a bit clunky, but I think that’s just how they wrote things then. Everyone speaks in these big, meaningful sentences about honor and the peaks.
I don't think anyone actually talks like that when they are freezing their toes off. But it works for the vibe they wanted.
The ending comes up pretty fast. It doesn't really wrap everything up in a neat bow, but that's okay.
You’re mostly just glad they got off the mountain alive. Or at least I was.
If you've seen other Alpine films, this one is a solid entry. It's better than Film 5 in terms of the actual stunts.
Overall, it’s a bit of a trip. It’s not a masterpiece of storytelling, but it’s a great piece of history to gawk at for an hour or so.
Just don't expect it to make much sense if you aren't into the whole "mountain man" mythos. Luis Trenker is definitely an acquired taste.
IMDb 5.9
1930
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