"Touching the Void" is a partly re-enacted documentary of a climb of the western face of the Siula Grande in Peru in 1985. The details of the climb make for a fine and gripping film.

The brief details of the climb of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates is that their ascent is relatively straight forward despite the mountain being more technically difficult than they had expected. It on the descent that problems really began. Firstly and, obviously, critically, Simpson slipped on an ice ledge and smashed right leg. The only piece of good fortune being that no bone penetrated the skin. It was thus left to Yates to assist his partner to the base camp.

At this point, matters deteriorated further when Yates was forced to cut their connecting rope when Simpson had fallen over a cliff and was in danger of dragging his partner with him. Yates then proceeded to climb down having realistically left Simpson for dead. However, by a combination of luck and supreme courage, Simpson too made the descent but in a truly battered state. He had, for example, lost one third of his body weight!

Upon the climbers return to their native England, Yates was apparently criticised for cutting Yates loose. Simpson never joined this criticism but only praised Yates for his efforts.

The film is a re-enactment of the heroism of the two climbers. It outlines to all that mountain climbing is a dangerous past time that only the foolish and/or the brave can contemplate. The film should be seen by all if only for the wonderful telling of a story of heroism within a vast, magnificent and unforgiving landscape.

Watching TOUCHING THE VOID, I was reminded of the dangers that face Real Men. This was after I chipped a nail while opening a can of non-alcoholic brew. But, at least my Mommie was sympathetic.

In 1985, two twenty-something Brits, Simon Yates and Joe Simpson, endeavored to climb the 21,000 foot Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. Climbing successfully to the top was easy compared to getting back down, during which Simpson falls off an ice wall driving a shin bone up through the kneecap and splitting his femur. The only good news is that the skin wasn't broken. As Simon subsequently struggles to get the two of them back off the peak, cruel bad luck and circumstance contrive to pitch Joe into a crevasse. Thinking his friend dead, Simon staggers into base camp and prepares to return home. In the meantime, Simpson, still alive, must either go it alone or face certain death from exhaustion and dehydration. Being "between a rock and a hard place" takes on new meaning.

Since this pseudo-documentary begins with interviews with the real Simon and Joe, the audience knows from the start that the latter lives. But that fact doesn't detract from the nail-biting nature of this superb depiction of dogged perseverance and survival recreated by the climbers' own words paired with a brilliant re-enactment of the story both in Peru and in the Alps in which Nicholas Aaron stars as Simon and Brendan Mackey as Joe. The visual link between the four is seamless because the actors are beat-up and sun and wind-burned to the point of being unrecognizable anyway. The climbing scenes, filmed by Kevin Macdonald at night and during storms as necessary to remain true to the story, are perhaps some of the best you'll ever see.

The only other film that comes to mind which gives real-life testimony to Man's remarkable ability to survive against the most terrible of Nature's odds is the THE ENDURANCE (2002), a brilliant chronicle of Ernest Shackleton's doomed 1914-1916 expedition to the South Pole.

My easy chair and the trashy novels I read for vicarious thrills have never looked so inviting.

"Touching the Void" is indeed a remarkable story of survival. Joe Simpson's ordeal is vividly recaptured by director Kevin McDonald. McDonald's rather straightforward style, with the real Joe Simpson and Simon Yates recounting their harrowing experience climbing, and then descending, the beautiful but brutal, Suila Grande, in the Peruvian Andes, works well here. If there is hole in this story, and I think there is, it's in Simpson himself. He's one cold fish, so it's hard to work up a real measure of empathy. You half expect him to quote Nietzsche at some point. No doubt he would tell you this bleak attitude toward life and death is what kept him going. Maybe, but you get the sense that this heroic effort is being told by a mechanical man - and he was that way before Simpson cut the rope. The only time I really felt for Simpson, was when he fell into delirium, and was plagued with memories of a bad song. It's only then that his control slips, and seems human at last.

This film, based upon the international best seller of the same name, recounts an amazing tale of courage, fortitude, and the will to live, despite dire circumstances. About twenty or so years ago, British mountaineers Joe Simpson and his then climbing partner, Simon Yates, attempted to ascend a perilous section of the Peruvian Andes, Suila Grande, a majestic 21,000 foot peak that was nearly inaccessible. These two intrepid climbers tackled the mountain alpine style and, surprisingly, reached the summit, the first mountaineers to do so.

After reaching the summit, however, tragedy struck on their descent, when Joe, up over 19,000 feet, fell and hit a slope at the base of a cliff, breaking his right leg and rupturing his right knee. Beneath him was a seemingly endless fall to the bottom. When Simon reached him, they both knew that the chances for getting Joe off the mountain were virtually non-existent. Yet, Simon Yates fashioned a daring plan to do just that. For the next few hours, they worked in tandem through a snowstorm, and managed a risky, yet effective, way of trying to lower Joe down the mountain.

Several thousand feet down, Joe, who was roped to Simon, dropped off an edge and found himself now free hanging in space, about six feet away from an ice wall, unable to reach it with his axe. The edge was over hung above him and the dark outline of a yawning crevasse lay directly below him. Joe could not get up, and Simon could not get down. In fact, Joe's weight began to pull Simon off the mountain. So, Simon was finally forced to do the only thing he could do under the circumstances. He cut the rope, believing that he was consigning his friend to certain death. Therein lies the tale. It is at this point in the film that the real story begins.

What happens next is sure to make one believe in miracles. This is an absorbing, beautifully shot film. The story is told in a sort of unique docu-drama style, with actors re-enacting moments in this fantastic, true life tale of survival, while Joe Simpson and Simon Yates narrate what happened on that mountain. It is an absorbing piece of cinema, as it presents a somewhat novel and fresh way of telling this amazing survival story. The cinematography is magnificent, as the film is shot in the Peruvian Andes, where the incident occurred. Moreover, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates do the actual climbing scenes in the film. All armchair climbers will thrill to the sound of their crampons and axes digging into the ice. My only suggestion is that one read the book before viewing the film.

This has to be one of the most intense docudrama I ever seen on screen or anyplace else. The docudrama was based on the book by Joe Simpson about his experiences on the Andes peak of 21,000 feet where he and his partner planned to conquer and did. The trouble came when they were coming down and Simpson broke his right leg in pieces. His partner was partially successful in getting him down the mountain until they ran into a point of no return thanks to an overhang. His partner, Simon Yates, who was in endangered of being pull down with his danging partner, decided to cut the rope to save himself - act that amazingly cost him much reputation as well as a sense of personal guilt. However, Simpson survived the fall and managed to get back to the basecamp, doing it nothing but sheer will power and undying desire to live. It was surreal watching this movie because you are often left during several points of the film how these guys were narrating this story when they should be dead. At least in many of the Simpson's scenes, I felt that way. Yates and Simpson narrated the movie while it was being "reenacted" at the actual terrain and mountain. According to Simpson's book, he thought that the movie was very accurate to his book. Its also Simpson's credit that he defended his partner's actions very strongly.

Very interesting movie....for people who like to see the movie instead of reading the book, this is a perfect example where that might not be a bad idea. I did both, read the book and saw the movie. I got hit twice by Simpson's amazing story of survival and it never fell to awe me.