A scene from The Summit of the Gods (Netflix)

A fraying rope produces fraying nerves in the vertigo-inducing animated feature The Summit of the Gods. Its immersive mountain climbing scenes offer proof that 2D provides just as many stomach-turning, vicarious thrills (or fears) as 3-D animation. It’s a no-brainer on why director Patrick Imbert (co-director of The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales, which is quite different in tone and style) chose animation as opposed to live action for this story. He goes where no filmmaker’s camera could possibly reach, with the added freedom of letting his imagination run free. A climber outrunning an avalanche is among the many suspenseful sequences in this adaptation of the manga series by Jiro Taniguchi and Baku Yumemakura, which in turn was based on Yumemakura’s 1998 novel.

This is the newest member of the mountain-climbing film club that has sprung up recently: The Alpinist (2020), Free Solo (2018), and Touching the Void (2003). In its own way, the film raises and partially answers a query that pops up in these movies: Why would climbers risk their lives to reach the summit of the world’s tallest peaks? Imbert’s film offers an enigmatic response: “Once you get the taste of it, nothing else matters.”

Imbert has given shape to an exciting adventure saga without upstaging the characters buried underneath layers of clothing and hidden behind sunglasses. Japanese photojournalist Fukamachi Makoto (voiced by Damien Boisseau) is on an assignment in Nepal, following an expedition up Mount Everest, which has fizzled out. While he drinks alone in a Kathmandu bar, a stranger approaches him, offering to sell the camera that accompanied George Mallory and Andrew Irvine in 1924 during their attempt to be the first to summit the world’s tallest mountain. They never returned to base camp and their bodies have never been discovered—perhaps they were the first to reach the summit? Fukamachi shoos the stranger away, but on his way back to the hotel, he notices the seller being roughed up and shaken down for the camera, and recognizes the attacker who runs off with the camera: Habu Jôji (Eric Herson-Macarel), an acclaimed Japanese mountain climber who vanished in the 1960s without a trace.

A self-taught alpinist and a day laborer by trade, Habu had a reputation as a hardened, if not stoic, loner who possessed almost super-human powers of resilience. In one of the many flashbacks, he bluntly advices a group of climbers that he would cut the rope if a fallen colleague couldn’t be saved and to protect everyone else connected to the rope—yes, this foreshadows a hair-rising sequence. Back in Tokyo, which appears less vibrant than the mountainous landscapes, Fukamachi convinces his editor that he should pursue a story on whether or not Mallory’s camera actually exists, while solving the mystery of the elusive Habu’s whereabouts.

The filmmakers have made one of the few animated works that is uncompromisingly for adults, yet it will draw in younger viewers for its no-nonsense narrative and the dangerous mountain-climbing sequences. The look of much of the movie—whether set in Tokyo, the Alps, or the Himalayas—takes its cues from photo realism, with vibrant color adjustments to tweak the skies at sunset. Matching the visuals, the musical score by Amin Bouhafa mixes the majestic with the ethereal and recalls the 1970s synth work of Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis. One quibble, though: as the story line jumps back and forth several decades, Habu appears ageless; it’s hard to tell what era we’re in.

The film’s premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival took place not in a theater but on a beach, which deprived the audience of the immersive sound design, which at times adds more information than the images do. Given that the movie did not have a red-carpet send-off or a press screening, it left the festival with little word-of-mouth, yet it is one of the best titles from this year’s lineup. It’s also a shame that it is yet another film that should be seen in the theater to experience it fully, though it will be seen more widely while streaming on Netflix. Nevertheless, even on a smaller screen, it will be breathtaking, as long as you turn up the sound.