Since ancient times, when the ancestor of modern man stood upright and began to walk on two legs, people have explored almost the entire planet Earth. As one of the last, the peaks of the world's highest mountains remained unvisited.

The two-man expedition of the legendary R. Messner and his colleague H. Kammerlander to the 8,000-meter Gašerbrum I and II peaks recorded in Herzog's now classic austere, uncompromising, psychologizing style, in the creation of which Herzog made use of his earlier expedition film experience. With his small crew, he is not so much trying to film the ascent itself, led in alpine style and traversing both mountains without descending to the base camp, but rather to reveal the inner motivations of both climbers to undertake these extreme feats.