SXSW Film Review: The Ascent

Mandy Horvath is a bilateral amputee crawling to the summit of Africa’s tallest mountain on her hands – knuckles down going forward, palms flat going back, arms propelling her across ants, unsteady terrain, magnetic rocks, and ice. When the camera pulls wide to show her moving alongside her team, all of whom have their legs, the scale of what she is doing becomes almost incomprehensible.

The Ascent begins and ends on Kilimanjaro. The structure mirrors the journey: steep and relentless, with switchbacks that carry you just to the brink of emotion before cutting to an interview or family memory, then dropping you back on the mountain.

What happened to Mandy in 2014 is so horrifying it becomes seared into memory, even secondhand. At 20, she went to a bar with a new boyfriend and someone she considered her best friend. Tensions boiled over, she stepped outside to smoke a cigarette, and everything went black. She was placed, arms posed as if in a coffin, and left unconscious across nearby train tracks. The conductor spotted her and pulled the emergency brake, but twenty train cars ran over her body before the train could stop – and she died three times. No toxicology test, no rape kit, and no one has even been charged. The police processing in tiny Steele City, Nebraska was abhorrent. It was another layer of betrayal by people she trusted and systems that should have protected her.

Mandy is beautiful, articulate, and very funny. Her mother says when she makes up her mind “she’s gonna do it come hell or high water,” and on that mountain, it shows. After self-medicating landed her in jail, she went through treatment, and now three years sober, she holds seven world climbing records. The score is lovely: light and hopeful on the mountain, darker and heavy in the backstory. In one scene, Mandy and porter Whitey sing Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” a cappella, followed by Marley himself. A third choral rendition swells at the summit, well-timed and really moving.

The film’s core theme is trust – broken as a child, shattered as a young adult in the kind of vicious nightmare we warn our female loved ones about. The Ascent brings you along as Mandy rebuilds her faith in humanity, one crawl at a time. At the premiere’s Q&A she said the film made her feel validated, then added: “I’d tell young women to be careful when they go out, because not everyone has the best intentions.” 

The audience had been audibly crying and cheering from title card through credits and gave Mandy and the filmmakers in attendance a long standing ovation. One person called it “an incredibly moving piece of cinema,” and it’s so very true.

The Ascent Documentary Feature Competition, World Premiere Monday 16, 11:30am, Alamo Lamar Tuesday 17, 3:15pm, Alamo Lamar Find more of The Austin Chronicle’s continuing coverage of SXSW.

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