TOUCHING THE VOID Rating: (out of 5 stars) Director: Kevin Macdonald Producer: John Smithson Writer: Based on the book Touching The Void by Joe Simpson Director of Photography: Mike Eley Cast: Brendan Mackey, Nicholas Aaron Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew

(Read the interview with director Kevin Macdonald.)

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Review by: Warren Curry
1/16/04

Human beings really are amazing creatures. I find it astonishing, first of all, that anyone would actually want to climb a mountain that's peak is 21,000 feet in the sky. And I find it infinitely more mind boggling that after suffering horrific setbacks, British mountain climbers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates actually lived to tell about their battle with said mountain -- a story too unfathomable to pass as credible fiction.

In the documentary Touching The Void, director Kevin Macdonald intercuts interview footage with both Simpson and Yates with a dramatic recreation of the men's harrowing 1985 adventure on the Peruvian Andes' mountain known as Siula Grande. The words "dramatic recreation" certainly are good reasons to create skepticism in potential viewers of this film, but these scenes are worlds away from what someone raised on a steady diet of, say, "America's Most Wanted" would expect. Macdonald, his crew, two actors -- Brendan Mackey and Nicholas Aaron -- and Simpson and Yates, traveled to Siula Grande, and also the Alps, to dramatize the events. The dramatizations accomplish what they're supposed to -- giving the viewers an intimate, authentic sense of the environment and conditions that plagued the climbers.

As for the events themselves, it's a whopper of a tale. Siula Grande had never been scaled when Simpson and Yates set out to achieve the feat. The men's ascent of the snow covered mountain was successful, but when the duo began their descent trouble struck in the form of Simpson breaking his right leg. Compounding the problem was the fact that the men had no food or water, and the freezing temperatures made hypothermia a distinct possibility.

But Yates was not about to abandon his partner. The climber connected a rope between he and Simpson, and began to lower his injured friend down the mountain, 300 feet at a time. It was a slow process, but given the circumstances, it went smoothly, until Simpson, unbeknownst to Yates, was lowered off of the mountain and over a crevasse. Yates could feel no signs of activity on the other end of the rope, but knew that his partner's weight was slowly sapping his strength and would eventually pull him to, in all likelihood, his death. For a climber, Yates choice became an unthinkable one.

Despite the fact that you know all will end at least relatively well, due to the fact that you're watching interview footage of Yates and Simpson reflecting on the ordeal, the film still manages to bristle with tension -- Touching The Void is substantially more about the journey than the destination. The moment when Yates is faced with his penultimate decision -- either cut the rope or risk dying -- is about as wrenching as the movies get.

There are occasions when the long, painful process that these men faced is detailed too authentically. While increasing the film's realism, this approach hampers the pace, and when a movie relies so heavily on a tense mood to achieve its desired effect, breaks in the storytelling momentum can be costly. But for the most part, the film manages to thoroughly grasp the viewer in its clutches.

Joe Simpson's individual journey to survival is a testament to the nearly inhuman determination and power one can wield when faced with the possibility of death. Ultimately, Touching The Void draws its substance from the story's humanism. It can be viewed as a non-sappy, cliché-free sports underdog movie, and one would be hard-pressed to think of a bigger underdog than Joe Simpson.

While the pacing could use a nudge forward from time to time, Touching The Void is a well-put together and intelligently executed thrill ride.

(An IFC Films release. Opens in New York on January 23, 2004 and Los Angeles on February 6, 2004. Expands to more cities at later dates.)