Main Cast: Brendan Mackey, Nicholas Aaron, Joe Simpson, Simon Yates, Richard Hawking
Release Year: 2003
Country: UK
Run Time: 106 minutes
Plot
In 1985, two adventurous young mountaineers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, set off to climb the treacherous west face of the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. They were experienced climbers, and climbed "Alpine-style," climbing the mountain in "one great push," without setting up ropes or base camps ahead of time. After dealing with a snowstorm and some dangerous climbing over powder formations, they reached the summit (about 21,000 feet) on the third day. The climb down proved to be far more difficult. Simpson fell and broke his leg badly. Yates decided to try to lower Simpson down the mountain, one 300-foot section of rope at a time. The climbers had run out of gas to melt snow, so they couldn't risk stopping as night came, and a violent snowstorm began. Their plodding, painful journey hit a snag when Yates inadvertently lowered Simpson over the edge of a cliff. In the storm, the men couldn't hear each other's cries, and, Yates, uncertain as to Simpson's position, and gradually sliding down the slope himself, decided to cut the rope that connected them, sending Simpson plummeting to certain death. Miraculously, Simpson survived the fall, and was faced with the prospect of getting off the mountain alone with no food, no water, and a broken leg. In Touching the Void, filmmaker Kevin Macdonald (One Day in September) tells their story, based on Simpson's book, using contemporary interviews with the two men, and a reenactment of their climb and descent, featuring Brendan Mackey as Simpson and Nicholas Aaron as Yates. Touching the Void was shown at the 2003 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Review
Kevin Macdonald's Touching the Void is an expert telling of an amazing true tale. While the story of mountain climbers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates is an incredibly dramatic true tale of death-defying adventure, and the film is absorbing, Touching the Void also gives a sense of missed opportunity. Macdonald's mix of interview footage and dramatic reenactment works very effectively. By focusing so intently on the minutiae of the moutaineers' harrowing ordeal (close-ups of picks going into ice and of climbers faces--stoic frozen masks of endurance), Macdonald gives the audience an almost tactile sense of the cold and the thirst and the pain the two men experienced in the beautifully alien Andean landscape. But it feels like there's an emotional component to the story that's missing. The film barely touches on who Simpson and Yates are as people, and the nature of their relationship. After the fact, Yates was widely criticized in mountaineering circles for his actions, which is the reason Simpson has given for writing his book, but Macdonald only notes this in a closing title. Macdonald is clearly interested in shaping documentary footage into exciting narrative structures. If One Day in September was a political thriller, Touching the Void could be seen as an action-adventure. It's an action-adventure, essentially, about a man crawling down a mountain, a few feet at a time. Macdonald, perhaps to keep up the pace, eschews much of the personal drama underpinning the survival tale. The film is never less than engrossing, but it does leave one wanting to know more. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Cast
Brendan Mackey - Joe Simpson
Nicholas Aaron - Simon Yates
Joe Simpson
Simon Yates
Richard Hawking
Credit
Patrick Bill - Art Director, Paul Sowerbutts - Associate Producer, Susie Figgis - Casting, Sue Summers - Co-producer, Patrick Bill - Costume Designer, Nick Laws - First Assistant Director, Kevin Macdonald - Director, Justine Wright - Editor, Paul Trijbits - Executive Producer, Robin Gutch - Executive Producer, Charles Furneaux - Executive Producer, Gina Marsh - Line Producer, Alex Heffes - Composer (Music Score), Mike Eley - Cinematographer, Keith Partridge - Cinematographer, John Smithson - Producer, Joakim Sundström - Sound/Sound Designer, Mike Duffield - Sound/Sound Designer, Joe Simpson - Book Author
Touching the Void is a 2003 documentary film based on the book of the same name by Joe Simpson about Simpson's and Simon Yates' disastrous and near fatal attempt to climb the 6,344 metre (20,813 foot) Siula Grande in the PeruvianAndes in 1985. The film combines documentary footage of interviews conducted with Simpson, Yates and Richard Hawking with a reenactment performed by actors Brendan Mackey, Nicholas Aaron and Ollie Ryall. The film was directed by Kevin MacDonald.
During the making of the film, the director and producers invited Simon Yates and Joe Simpson to return to Siula Grande in 2002 for the first time since the events of 1985. Simpson, despite finding the return emotionally difficult and experiencing post traumatic stress syndrome on his return, eventually said that he was happy with the film and its portrayal of the events. Yates, on the other hand, reported having no emotional response to returning to Siula Grande, and decided to have nothing to do with the film once he had returned from the mountain.[1]
After the story of what happened to Simpson and Yates reached home (England), Yates received much criticism from some mountaineers for cutting the rope during the descent. Simpson has deeply accepted that Yates did the right thing and practically saved his life, and has always defended him on that matter.
Box office
The film was released on January 23, 2004 and grossed $96,973 in the opening weekend. It went on to gross $4,593,598 in America and $9,292,204 from foreign markets for a worldwide total of $13,885,802 after 20 weeks.[2]
Music
The climbers reach the summit to the climax of Thomas Tallis's Spem in alium. During one of Joe's many deliriums, he experiences a very strong reminiscence of a Boney M song, "Brown Girl in the Ring", a song he hated thoroughly, at one point he was thinking "bloody hell, I'm going to die to Boney M".
Notes
^Touching the Void Region 1 Special Features. [DVD]. MGM.
