At the age of 32 Alexander von Humboldt finds himself in South America preparing the ascent to the Chimborasso, the highest mountain in the region, which had never been conquered before. His curiosity, his cosmopolitan open mindedness and the values of the French revolution guide him throughout the whole strenuous ascent.

At the age of 32, Alexander von Humboldt is travelling in South America, on the other side of the world. He sets off with two companions, the French botanist and doctor Aimé Bonpland and the Creolian nobleman Carlos Montúfar, and a complete caravan from a hacienda in the Andes to climb Chimborazo, the highest mountain in the region and one which had never been climbed before.

Humboldt does everything possible to record in great detail everything that he sees and hears in the course of arduous and strenuous journey. He examines, measures and compares plants and animals, soil, water and air. Above all, there are the native Indians whose villages are strung along the caravan's route at the foot of the mountain. They are welcomed by the Indians and spend the night in their huts. Humboldt soaks up their way of living and civilation openmindedly, with curiosity, interest and respect.

Brief film sequences and flashbacks during this ascent of mount Chimborazo illustrate the desperation and passion with which young Alexander von Humboldt sought to realize his idea of exploring the world and breaking out of the confined Prussian world. They also demonstrate the inventiveness with which he prepared his project and the boldness with which he finally carried it out, as well as how he became the man who, in keeping with the French Revolution's principles of liberty, equality and fraternity, accepted the underprivileged and generally disdained Indians as human beings of equal value with their own civilization and way of life.

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), son of a royal Prussian chamberlain, was one of the great European scholars of his times, an explorer and travel writer. His scientific studies laid the foundations for animal and plant geography. He corresponded with Goethe and Schiller and travelled extensively to South America (1799-1804), the Urals and the Altai mountains (1829). As a young scholar, he enthusiastically welcomed the French Revolution and later actively supported the abolition of slavery in the USA. The South American liberation fighter Simón Bolívar called him the "scientific discoverer" of America, a "second Columbus".

Alexander von Humboldt's historic ascent of mount Chimborazo, which was considered in those days to be the highest mountain in the world, serves as the starting point and dramatic climax of this film, which does not stray from historical fact, including Humboldt's journeys to France and England, accompanied by Johann Georg Adam Forster. A supporter of the Enlightenment, Forster had become famous throughout Europe with his book "Journey around the World" (1777).

Director Rainer Simon and his co-author Paul Kanut Schäfer have interspersed the ascent of mount Chimborazo with numerous flashbacks illustrating various stages in the life of Alexander von Humboldt. The dramaturgy is sometimes rather confusing as it attempts to combine the narrative's chronologically and geographically different levels into a single all-encompassing present day. Yet it is precisely the resultant tension which proves that, despite the love of historical detail, the film also tends in a completely different direction and can be interpreted as a Brechtian "text in slave language", a language full of ambiguities and inferences which are only understood by the subordinates but not by their masters.

DIE BESTEIGUNG DES CHIMBORAZO was produced in the last years of the GDR. Viewed in this light, young Alexander von Humboldt's thirst for distant countries suddenly acquires an enormously up-to-date political dimension which can first of all be explained by the stringent controls on travel in the GDR. For the audience it must have seemed more than provocative for young Alexander von Humboldt to berate the ban prohibiting students from visiting foreign universities. During a demonstration of a model Montgolfiere, the young scholar carries the balloon out of the house, releases it and follows its flight with yearning eyes. The motif reappears when Alexander must obtain the permission of the Spanish court to explore Latin America. As he declares beforehand, "I fail to see why I should have to ask a king where I may travel."

The film's political criticism is not confined to free travel. Humboldt also complains that the Prussians do not have any "enlightened spirits" and later he expresses his doubts as to the success of the upheavals in France which he had warmly welcomed: "What has become of this French Revolution?" His "leftist" idealism is never disputed. In Ecuador, he tries to avoid using Spanish, the language of the conquerors, by learning Ketchua and teaching the Indios a few words of German; he intervenes when an Indio is whipped and states that knowledge is important for the native population. His restlessness is also conveyed in front of the camera, which shoots one scene towards the end of the film from a helicopter. Many may consider this to be a breach of style, but the "unnatural" perspective draws attention to the film's topical modern dimension as its hero repeatedly complains of state tutelage and asks "why can we not shape our own fate?" In this way, this historical story also reflects the mood prevailing in the last years of the GDR.

Production Country

Germany (DE)

Production Period

1988/1989

Production Year

1989

color

color

Aspect Ratio

1:1,66

Duration

Feature-Length Film (61+ Min.)

Type

Feature Film

Genre

History Film

Topic

Colonialism, GDR, Science, Environment / Ecology / Climate Change

Available Media

DVD

Original Version

German (de), Spanish (Latin America)

DVD

Subtitles

German (de), English (en), French (fr), Spanish (es), Portuguese (Brazil) (pt)