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Touching The Void film review
TOUCHING THE VOID
Running time: 106 mins
Starring: Joe Simpson, Simon Yates, Brendan Mackey, Nicholas Aaron
Based in the international best-selling book by Joe Simpson, Touching the Void tells a true story so incredible that were it not for the presence of the two main protagonists who went through the real-life events in the story nobody could believe it had actually happened. Director Kevin Macdonald follows up his Oscar-winning documentary One Day In September with a hugely powerful tale of human survival against all the odds.
Simpson was an avid and experienced climber and in 1985, with his climbing partner Simon Yates, he flew to Peru to scale the notorious Suila Grande, a treacherous peak over 20,000 feet high which had never successfully been conquered. Despite their vast experience climbing Europe's highest mountains, this was a completely different challenge for the two young mountaineers. They set off with three days gas, no radio contact with the ground and a base camp that had only a trekker they had just encountered as its sole inhabitant.
The film sets its stall out straightaway, and mixes modern day talking heads interviews with the three characters with a dramatic reconstruction of their climb. Two actors play the young climbers but they are free from the constraints of dialogue and concentrate on showing us how unlikely the target they had set was.
But succeed they did, and on the second day they became the first people to set foot on the summit after a relatively easy climb. However, as Yates points out crucially, most climbing accidents occur soon after the descent has begun. His prophecy proved to be spot on as less than half an hour later Simpson had lost his footing, shattered his leg and was dangling over a precipice 22,000 feet in the air.
This is really only the beginning of a saga that defies what most of us would usually regard as pushing the limits of human possibility way beyond the norm. What happened over the ensuing five days becomes increasingly astounding and this gripping film tells the story at a breakneck and captivating pace.
Macdonald's choice to make it as a drama-documentary pays off perfectly. The camerawork is stunning throughout, and the actors show the increasing fears of the two characters. But the real Simspon and Yates give the film an extra lift, as they matter-of-factly recount the events that led to them both staring death in the face for five days. Simpson is the more bullish of the two and displays an extraordinary instinct for survival. Yates still seems haunted by what happened on the mountain and certainly had the more difficult moral and psychological challenge of the two.
The only minor quibble is that the film leaves the audience desperate to find out more about the subsequent events (apparently Yates was blackballed from mountaineering for his actions, yet Simpson has always staunchly defended his partner). This is an unlikely and unprecedented success which has universal appeal and uses climbing as the frame in which it all happened. Macdonald deserves more rewards this time around and has now established himself as one of the most interesting directors around.
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