What the Summit of the Gods teaches us about creativity and obsession

The 2021 animated film The Summit of the Gods is not about climbing. Not entirely. It is about obsession, ambition, and the relentless pursuit of creation—no matter the cost. Watching it, I couldn’t help but see a sharp parallel between extreme mountaineering and the artistic process. Both demand endurance, sacrifice, and an ability to be alone with the work.

The solitude of the ascent

At the heart of the film is Fukamachi, a photojournalist who stumbles upon a camera that may prove whether George Mallory reached Everest’s summit in 1924. His search leads him to Habu Jōji, an elusive climber who has vanished into the mountains. Habu does not climb for recognition. He climbs because he must. His existence is bound to the summit, to the purity of the climb itself.

I recognise that same compulsion in the creative process. Anyone who has been pulled into an all-consuming project will. The artist, like the climber, is drawn to something that demands everything—often at the expense of stability, comfort, and human connection.

Creativity is an endurance test. It demands resilience—the ability to push through failure, doubt, and prolonged isolation. Great works are not born from moments of inspiration but from perseverance. The writer, the painter, the composer—each labours through uncertainty, exhaustion, and stretches of effort that offer no immediate reward. The Summit of the Gods captures this struggle with brutal clarity.

A pivotal moment shows Habu climbing alone, breath ragged, body near collapse. No audience, no applause—only the act itself. I know that feeling. So does anyone who has spent hours staring at a blank page, revising the same paragraph, or erasing an entire day’s work. The summit remains distant. The struggle is internal.

Obsession and sacrifice

Habu’s singular focus consumes him. Friendships, relationships, even his sense of self erode. He ceases to be an individual in any conventional sense—he becomes the climb.

I’ve seen creative ambition do the same. I’ve felt it. The artist withdraws, drifts from friends, neglects responsibilities. Days dissolve into a pursuit that may never take form. Meals go uneaten. Conversations are forgotten. The outside world blurs into irrelevance. The work absorbs everything, and yet abandoning it is unthinkable.

But where is the threshold between passion and self-destruction? Artists and climbers walk this line, some finding balance, others crumbling under the weight of their ambition. Figures such as Ernest Hemingway, Vincent van Gogh, and Reinhold Messner illustrate this spectrum. Hemingway’s pursuit of literary perfection was bound to personal ruin. Van Gogh’s brilliance exacted a devastating toll. Messner, one of the world’s greatest mountaineers, suffered profound personal losses in his quest for higher summits. Each case raises the same question: does greatness demand sacrifice, or is there a way to chase mastery without losing oneself?

The film suggests that unchecked obsession has consequences. Habu’s relentless pursuit erases him. He becomes a cautionary tale. And that makes me wonder—how much of myself have I given to the work? How much should any of us give? The artist who loses himself in the work risks forgetting what pulled him to it in the first place. The key is knowing when to step back—to descend before the pursuit consumes everything.

The unreachable summit

The film’s sharpest insight is that there is no final moment of triumph. One summit leads to another. The pursuit never ends.

This truth underpins all artistic work. Leonardo da Vinci never considered the Mona Lisa finished. Beethoven composed until his final breath, always revising, never satisfied. Stanley Kubrick obsessed over detail to the point of perpetual revision. Completion never signals the end—only the start of another ascent.

This is both a burden and a necessity. The artist, like the mountaineer, must exist within this tension—between satisfaction and striving, between completion and the knowledge that there will always be another peak beyond the one just conquered. If the goal is mastery, then the climb is endless.

How much will you give?

At its core, The Summit of the Gods is not about Everest. It is about ambition. It interrogates the drive to push forward, to risk everything for something uncertain and intangible. This force underpins all creative work—the hunger to make, to express, to capture something that will always remain just out of reach.

But how much should one give? Creativity is restless, an ache that cannot be ignored. The act of creation may quiet this hunger for a time, but it always returns. I’ve learned this firsthand. Maybe you have too. Some give everything and find meaning. Others lose themselves, unable to set boundaries between art and identity.

At some point, every artist faces the same question: how much sacrifice is necessary, and when does the cost outweigh the reward?

The summit will always remain distant. But maybe that is the point. Meaning is not found in arrival but in the ascent itself—in the endurance, the struggle, the refusal to settle. To create is to reach for something just beyond grasp, knowing full well that the process will never be complete.

Screenshots from The Summit of the Gods (2021) are used under fair use for the purpose of critical analysis and commentary.