Product Description

After scaling the never-before-climbed 21000 foot siula grande mountain climbers joe simpson & simon yates face their greatest challenge yet getting back down. But when simpson shatters his leg in a fall & the friends are separated their journeys become an inspiring voyage. Studio: Tcfhe/mgm Release Date: 02/13/2007 Run time: 107 minutes Rating: R

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4338 in DVD
• Brand: VAS
• Released on: 2004-06-15
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 106 minutes

Amazon.com
To describe Touching the Void as a mountaineering documentary would be to do this breathtaking drama an injustice. By intercutting narration from the climbers themselves with a nail-biting reconstruction of their remarkable adventure in the Peruvian Andes, the film has the best of both genres: the authentic stamp of factual storytelling and the edge-of-the-seat tension of a dramatic movie.

In 1985, two British mountaineers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, embarked on a daring--arguably reckless in the extreme--attempt to climb the previously unconquered mountain Siula Grande. A mixture of overconfidence in their own abilities and underestimation of the climb's difficulties brought them to grief after the successful slog to the summit. What follows is an often harrowing account of their perilous descent.

Based on Joe Simpson's gripping book, the film boasts glorious widescreen photography of Siula Grande and its notorious glacier. Actors take the place of the two climbers for close-ups, though Simpson did return to Peru in order to reenact parts of his dreadful crawl back down the ice. The story of Simpson's almost-superhuman fortitude has become legendary in climbing circles, and even for viewers uninterested in mountaineering, Touching the Void is an astonishing slice of real-life drama, magnificently retold. --Mark Walker

DVD features
Touching the Void is presented on DVD in anamorphic widescreen, which makes the most of the glorious vistas, and Dolby 5.1 sound. In addition to a making-of featurette, two fairly short extras are invaluable appendices to the main feature: "What Happened Next" tells in their own words how the team made it back home, while "Return to Siula Grande" finds both Joe and Simon back at the mountain in the summer of 2002 to advise on the filming; emotions are mixed at best, as Simon seems unable to express his real feelings about the experience, and Joe finds himself painfully reliving the ordeal in his mind, as well as in front of the cameras. --Mark Walker

From The New Yorker
Kevin Macdonald's new film is a dismaying documentary account of what happened on the side of a mountain in 1985. Two young British climbers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, ascended the west face of Siula Grande, in the Peruvian Andes, and then began their descent. Simpson slipped and injured his leg, then fell again, this time off the brink of a ridge. He was hanging from the end of a rope; at the other end, sliding fast, was Yates, who cut the rope to save himself. You come out of the movie arguing hotly-as Macdonald wants you to do-about the rights and wrongs of that dire moment, and musing on the fact that Simpson survived his ordeal. The two men tell their story with a sang-froid verging on the comical, intercut with a dramatic reconstruction of the climb itself. The cinematography, all vertiginous horror and beauty, is by Mike Eley; it leaves us with a mad inkling of what drives a mountaineer, as well as a determination to stay, at all costs, on the level. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Harrowing Just to Watch
My son and I came out of the theater exhausted just by watching this quasi-documentary reenactment of the 1985 ascent up an unclimbed route on the Siula Grande glacier in Peru. The film's impact is heightened by the excellent cutting between the actor/climbers and Simon Yates and Joe Simpson, who recall their actions, reactions, and feelings nearly 20 years later. Disaster strikes on the descent, where -- as one of them notes -- "80 percent of accidents happen." After Simpson breaks his leg in a fall, Yates -- against impossible odds -- continues to try and get him down. Finally, Simpson falls again, off the edge of the mountain. After hours of hanging on to what feels like dead weight, Yates cuts the rope to prevent himself from being gradually pulled into the void. Simpson's survival and return to base camp is nothing short of miraculous, suggesting that man is never more tenacious about life than when he is closest to losing it. Though far different in its circumstances, his story rivals that of Shackleton and the Endurance in Antartica three quarters of a century before. An underlying issue, addressed briefly in the film, is whether Yates should have cut the rope. Apparently some other climbers criticized him for doing so, but Simpson always defended his action. I have no idea how well the technical aspects of Touching the Void are done, but to this mostly earthboard amateur, they looked brilliantly and truly shot. Danger and beauty are scarcely separable in Touching the Void. When you are not immersed in the terror of Yates' and, especially, Simpson's plight, the frigid beauty of the glacier, the colors within its crevasses are glorious. A story of recklessness and great determination, superbly told, filled with many "how did they ever shoot that?" moments, Touching the Void must be seen.

Impressive and truly incredible!
There aren't enough "mosts" and "-ests" to describe this movie. It's the story of two men, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, climbing the west face of the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. After making the summit, Joe slips on the descent and shatters his leg. Faced with certain death on the mountain, they attempt to descend by having Simon lower his injured friend in 300 foot increments (the length of their available rope). This works for a while until Joe slides over a precipice and is left hanging in mid-air. Unaware of whether his friend is alive or dead, Simon's only course of action is to eventually cut the rope.

Amazingly enough, Joe survived not only the fall over the ledge and the subsequent fall to the bottom of a deep crevasse. While Simon fought the elements and continued down (a harrowing tale in its own right), Joe managed to crawl out of the crevasse and after a four day ordeal reach their base camp. Somehow it seems trite to call this an adventure, and yet ordeal doesn't fully describe peril of it all.

Joe and Simon themselves provide the narration and context with an almost unworldly matter of fact manner that only adds to the experience You "know" they survived! The ordeal is painstakingly recreated with actors subbing for Joe and Simon as they offer their own stories and perspectives. Beyond the sheer drama of this film, there is some of the most impressive cinematography that you'll ever see. At times the camera will pan back from a relatively close shot to a distance of a mile or more away, leaving the climber little more than a tiny blur on the wall. It's a fantastic film that will truly leave you breathless.

Very intense docudrama
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.