Touching the Void | Review

High altitudes and one hellish survival story makes this a doc worth experiencing.

This will certainly draw the crowds of outdoor sport enthusiasts, but for the lucky few who venture past current digs of a gold winning hockey team and fun in a barbershop will have a documentary film experience like no other. Not only does this film bring you up a 21,000-foot drop it is 100 more times compelling than your typical action-packed Hollywood thriller. For those weary of getting the typical non-narrative IMAX-themed experience, director Kevin Macdonald who’s One Day in September won Oscar for best documentary in 2000, sets us up for one busy, Jack and Jill-like nightmarish experience.

If a cat has nine lives then the ill-fated Joe Simpson certainly had ten at his disposal. Based on the best seller of the same name by Simpson, Touching the Void is how one climbing expedition in Peruvian Andes for a couple of serious climbing buddies turns into the sort of near-death experience that not only surpasses the imaginary, but makes a case for all the sane people of the population who have very little desire to trust their lives with a quarter-inch thick size of rope.

At one point in the film’s book to screen development, Tom Cruise was the one visualized hanging off a cliff, but thankfully, the alternate route sees Macdonald’s construction of the split point-of-view story come in an interview style format of the subjects who narrate their own perils along with a dramatic re-enacted construction of events with actors Brendan Mackey and Nicholas Aaron who play Simpson, and Simon Yates respectfully. In more than one sequence, the actor and the subjective point of view shots leave a true impression of what it feels like to be in extreme pain, in complete isolation and in a state of hallucinatory conditions. In theory, this format which combines interview and reenactments works a lot better than a proposed fictionalized one, in fact, at one point during the film one suddenly realizes that the switch between actor and actual person is seamless; it helps when you have a broken leg, painful screams, dehydration and frozen finger tips to have play around in the viewer’s mind.

Besides the obvious impact of the story, the accolades also come in the form of the production value with a location shoot that braved the elements in an effort to bring us closer into the cruelty of nature and in the skin the of these nutty climbers. Cinematographer Mike Eley gives us some great shots of the monster mountain, as well as some cool shots of a staggering human spirit at death’s door, we literally feel the impact of the set-backs and understand how one fear is registered after another,– even if the survivors are narrating their own stories it works in favor of the film.

Touching the Void reminds of that journey found in The Killing Fields where each step is measured through the emotion carried in the image, and while a film like Alive certainly comes to mind, what Macdonald does, is leave the needless discussion of ethics and moral judgments out of the picture and let the intensity of the images speak for themselves. The message of determination is loud and clear and so are the countless moments felt where one false move can make literally transform a human being into a frozen pie, basically this is the best piece of psycho-drama since Van Sant’s Gerry.

Rating 3.5 stars