Touching the Void

I've received too many books and DVDs to write a review on all of them - any book or DVD or CD that I want, I order from Amazon. I know it will be here almost as quick as if I hopped in my car and went shopping. Since I don't like shopping this is the way to go and my orders, and there have been quite a few, are always received in good condition and received quickly.

I just figured it wasn't my kind of hardcore movie and continued on with my meager, uneventful existence. But on top of that, we get to celebrate two antisocial outcasts and their meticulous, hard-scrabbled methods for filling up a waste of time. Ever heard of an airport bathroom? It's an obvious fitness-minded, modern allegory about two men plagued by demons of buggery. By which I don't mean the practice of driving a buggy. What's kind of icky is that the ambiguous duo go back and recreate their carnal dark night of the soul and get teary-eyed and shaky. Look, I don't have anything against mountain climbers, just not in my bedroom, yo (NIMBY).

The movie is great and the price is good.

However, the hole in the centre of the DVD is different than in other DVDs. In the two copies of this DVD I have purchased, small cracks have radiated from the centre of the DVD. In other DVDs the centre part of the DVD is made from different material. In this DVD the hole in the centre seems to be punched right through the DVD material. This hasn't affected viewing, but is annoying and I'm worried a crack my lengthen and affect the viewing some day.

This is the story of two young Brits who scaled a particularly treacherous mountain, the Siula Grande, in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. Not anticipating the difficulty of the summit climb, the ordeal of inclement weather, and even greater difficulty of the descent, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, then in their early twenties, undertook to make their ascent in one push, carrying on their backs all the supplies they expected to need. Wholely dependent upon each other for success and survival, Joe Simpson falls during their descent and suffers a particularly nasty, life-threatening broken leg. Yates then undertakes to lower Simpson on a hundred meter line through blizzard conditions until there comes that dreaded moment when he can no longer feel Simpson's tug on the line and, to save his own life, must sever it. Miraculously, Simpson survives the fall. Then each must make his way down the mountain on his own. Though it seems to doubtful that this will be possible with such a severe injury, Simpson musters enormous physical and emotional reserves to manage to survive. It's a haunting tale, and much of it is told by each man facing a camera narrating his story in nearly deadpan style. Joe Simpson wrote a book about his experience, and has gone on to become a writer. Simon Yates meanwhile has become an adventurer. To make the film, each man has to return to Siula Grande, and that turns out to be a difficult emotional journey. Filmmaker Kevin MacDonald's interweaving of the men's narratives with careful reenactments makes for a sumptuous, beautifully filmed, and riveting viewing experience. In addition, there are terrific special features telling more details of the return to civilization and what life has been like for each man since.

Based on Simpson's bestselling book, this harrowing, suspenseful docudrama recreates the events of Yates and Simpson's fateful, arduous climb, sparing nothing in the traumatic details: exposure to the elements, violent snowstorms, and an icy 150-foot crevasse Yates unwittingly pitched his crippled mate into--then abandoned, believing him dead. That Simpson, the narrator, survived is a miracle in itself, but hearing his jarring account of the escape couldn't be more engrossing. For visceral thrills, "Void" is the perfect armchair adventure.