The Last First: Winter K2 Review – Ambition and Folly on the World's Second Highest Peak

K2 was climbed in winter for the first time in January 2021, during the Covid pandemic — a "last first" in mountaineering that claimed several lives among the climbers racing for the summit. Amir Bar-Lev's documentary The Last First: Winter K2 tells the story of the rival teams who attempted the feat simultaneously, several of whom did not survive.

The Guardian's review finds the film far more than a straightforward survival-against-the-odds account. Instead, it reads as "a microcosm of some of humanity's more regrettable traits, which rub up alongside each other in fascinatingly thorny ways."

What tensions does the race expose?

The Nepalese push for the summit, the review notes, came at the cost of the chummy camaraderie that had existed among the international climbers on the mountain. Yet the Nepalese climbers had their own historical claim to the moment: Nepal is a nation rich in indigenous mountaineering expertise that spent decades relegated to the role of humble assistant in records set by foreigners.

The film raises uncomfortable questions about who received credit for the triumph. Did all members of the Nepalese team get equal recognition, or did the lion's share of the glory go to Nirmal Purja — known as Nims — the Nepalese social media star who spoke fluent English and knew how to craft a headline-worthy soundbite?

What happened to Nims Dai?

The film carries a strange postscript. Nirmal Purja was killed in an avalanche this year, in Pakistan, in the interval between the documentary's world premiere at Sundance and its wider release. His death casts the film's questions about glory, privilege and record-setting in a sharper light.

The review frames the central ambiguity without resolving it: did Nims' record disrupt old patterns of privilege, subtly reinforce them in new ways — or both? Bar-Lev's film, the critic concludes, uncovers a fascinating weave of ambition and folly in the competing climbers' pursuit of something never done before.

For audiences, the documentary now doubles as an elegy: a record of climbers chasing history, made before history caught up with its most famous protagonist.