After the release of the trailer for Everest, I decided to finally get round to watching this...
This film latches onto everything in you that causes fear; bewilderment, catastrophe, isolation, pain, Boney M and doesn't let-up. It stimulates every Darwinian instinct in you to avoid danger, pain and to survive but also reinforces what is not animal in us: reason, trust and sympathy. It's a gripping story that's frankly unbelievable. But it's a documentary. It did happen. I cannot not believe it.
It is built from recollections and reconstructions. The narrators stare down the barrel of the camera and tease out the story candidly. They'd surely told this story hundreds of times which has honed the quality of their storytelling - I still wince when I recall Simon's description of the then new trajectory of the bones in his leg. The sentences are short and vivid and catch your attention but what holds your interest (and that's the trick) is that they always still seem genuine. The two of them are lucid about their feelings at the time with even hints of condescension towards their past selves. They explore their vulnerabilities like in in the confidence of a close friend, not a camera. Trust is an key theme in the film and it's explored cleverly. We see in the plot, the friendship between the climbers very quickly and trust ties into mutual survival. But as you watch it a trust develops between the narrator(s) and you the listener as they confide in you.
Simultaneously the fantastically shot reconstructions put us on the Siula Grande (6,344 m). They're there to ensure you see the horror of their predicament. And it works. The close-ups show us the equipment keeping them alive (including a rope as thin as a little finger and boots that poke spikes into snow an inch, at best), their cracked faces callused and red with the cold and the freezing gritty slog of climbing something that from far away is beautiful. The rope-cutting scene (which is in the trailer - I've spoilt nothing) is understandably the most cinematic point of the film; the set-piece and it's the lasting image of the film, the fall downwards downwards into the crevasse through sheets of ice. The reconstructions were cinematic but added empathy to the story.
(entry continues after images)
This is a true story. We never feel steered by an interviewer with an agenda of his own. It's not presented as a parable either but simply a series of events. We take from it that natural beauty and danger are part and parcel of climbing and their possible only regret seems to be their naivety in not respecting the climb enough. This is their story and the task of the filmmaker was to edit the accounts and reconstructions into a coherent structure. Touching the Void has brought a fantastic story of determination and catastrophe into public view and made it appear all the more real.
Was this film a waste of time? No, 4/5 (I'm downgrading my ratings from out of 10 to 5).
It is built from recollections and reconstructions. The narrators stare down the barrel of the camera and tease out the story candidly. They'd surely told this story hundreds of times which has honed the quality of their storytelling - I still wince when I recall Simon's description of the then new trajectory of the bones in his leg. The sentences are short and vivid and catch your attention but what holds your interest (and that's the trick) is that they always still seem genuine. The two of them are lucid about their feelings at the time with even hints of condescension towards their past selves. They explore their vulnerabilities like in in the confidence of a close friend, not a camera. Trust is an key theme in the film and it's explored cleverly. We see in the plot, the friendship between the climbers very quickly and trust ties into mutual survival. But as you watch it a trust develops between the narrator(s) and you the listener as they confide in you.
Simultaneously the fantastically shot reconstructions put us on the Siula Grande (6,344 m). They're there to ensure you see the horror of their predicament. And it works. The close-ups show us the equipment keeping them alive (including a rope as thin as a little finger and boots that poke spikes into snow an inch, at best), their cracked faces callused and red with the cold and the freezing gritty slog of climbing something that from far away is beautiful. The rope-cutting scene (which is in the trailer - I've spoilt nothing) is understandably the most cinematic point of the film; the set-piece and it's the lasting image of the film, the fall downwards downwards into the crevasse through sheets of ice. The reconstructions were cinematic but added empathy to the story.
(entry continues after images)
This is a true story. We never feel steered by an interviewer with an agenda of his own. It's not presented as a parable either but simply a series of events. We take from it that natural beauty and danger are part and parcel of climbing and their possible only regret seems to be their naivety in not respecting the climb enough. This is their story and the task of the filmmaker was to edit the accounts and reconstructions into a coherent structure. Touching the Void has brought a fantastic story of determination and catastrophe into public view and made it appear all the more real.
Was this film a waste of time? No, 4/5 (I'm downgrading my ratings from out of 10 to 5).