Most important, she shows what drives someone like her toward this kind of extreme sport, and it mainly boils down to wanting to live a life of significance. But Lhakpa’s aim is less about being famous and more about paving the way to a better future for herself and her children. “I want to be somebody. I want to do something good,” she says. “I want to show my two girls how to be brave.”
Skywalkers: A Love Story, directed by Jeff Zimbalist, is about a different kind of climbing. (It is not about Star Wars.) As the subtitle suggests, it’s the tale of the romance of Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, two Russian “rooftoppers” who became famous in 2015 for climbing incredibly tall buildings and construction sites and posting pictures from the top to Instagram. (This is, of course, very illegal, which is part of the thrill.)
Each is a loner and worked solo at first, seeing rooftopping as an art. Some rooftoppers are in it for the stunts and the fame, but both Nikolau and Beerkus were drawn to the prospect of seeing urban landscapes from the perspective of the sky and perhaps adding beauty to them as well. Nikolau is a trained gymnast whose Instagram photos often showed her striking a dancer’s pose; when Beerkus joined her, they fell in love, and he became part of the art.
Skywalkers follows the couple across years of climbing, their fame growing with each new feat. There’s plenty of death-defying footage from buildings all over the world. But the film is mostly about their romance and the ways that learning to trust each other, to look out for each other, mirrors the way love develops and perseveres even in rocky times. That’s part of the art, too.
Skywalkers: A Love Story is available to stream on Netflix now. Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa is available on Netflix from July 31.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Alissa Wilkinson
©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES
