Touching the Void

Two twenty-something friends go to a formidable mountain in the Andes for mountain climbing in 1985. Facing a mountain face to climb like never before, they have the fortune of meeting a stranger who agrees to stay at their base camp. Once they start the climb, they bring the basics: a woefully short gas supply for a mini stove and a little food. They plan to "pack sack," or take the mountain "in a single push". Sort of the bare-bones rendition of backpacking and mountain climbing, they run in peril unforeseen in their young, virile lives. Testing their strength, courage, and spirit, each have crucial decisions to make collectively and individually.

As a documentary and a reinactment, the project is particularly vivid. Being able to recall and honestly share their innermost thoughts is a real draw. Partly based on Joe Simpson's book and containing the interviews of both participants; the actors for Simpson, [Brendan Mackey] and Simon Yatey (Nicholas Aaron) reconstruct their ordeal well. 'Touching the Void' is a thoroughly absorbing journey recalling a harrowing struggle to survive.

I would recommed this show to anyone. The only part I didnt like is where he says the F word about 20 times in a row.

This DVD was awesome in that it put the book in great perspective. It's amazing they were able to film some of the things they did. It made me greatly appreciate the book and the story more.

Changed my views about discomfort and inconvenience. The first time I saw it, I said to myself "This is where I would have gone to sleep and died." Several times.

When I hear the word "docudrama," I usually laugh and think of the silly reenactments on CourtTV. I also think of prisoners and prison guards strutting before a camera, trying hard to make their lives and worlds significant to the law-abiding (or mostly law-abiding) people at home on their couches. There's a lot of flashing, fear-flavored graphics and sound effects, nauseating camera zooms, and an overbearing narrator manufacturing gravitas. The stories are compelling, but it's the manner in which they are presented that strikes me wrong. There's no "drama," but rather a cheap off-brand, melodrama, and the overall effect is one of flaccid entertainment instead of genuine humanity.

Touching the Void captures the true scope of a docudrama project. The goal is to as accurately as possible recreate the impossible. Director Kevin MacDonald's blend of gorgeous footage with crisp sound effects made me physically colder just watching and listening to them.

The best parts of the movie are those where the viewer feels that the director is attempting something new. Most of the film is a straightforward docudrama where the real-life people participate with artists in documenting and recreating the drama of an ordeal. There are moments, however, when artistic license intensifies the truth. Perhaps an ice axe tings sharply, and the sound seems to glisten like sunlight off the surrounding snow. My favorite, however, is when MacDonald accurately films what it's like to have a song truly lodged in your head. At that moment, I felt like I was watching and listening to something new.

There are plenty of movies about mountain climbing. Recent Everest expeditions on the Discovery Channel are intense: deformations from frostbite, poor decision-making in delirium, and even a climber's frozen death. As exciting as those Discovery Channel documentaries are, they still feel like prison melodramas to me. In Touching the Void, there's no real base camp or tanks of oxygen, just two young men moving up a large rock no one had ever climbed back in 1985.