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Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
TOUCHING THE VOID
The majority of the film - which takes its title from Simpson’s prolonged
tête-à-tête with death, and the meditations it provokes - follows Simpson’s
plunge into a dark crevasse and its effects on his body and spirit. Unraveling this astonishing
story of survival, director Kevin Macdonald deftly employs voiceover and tames that unruly
monster, the dramatic reenactment, which is smoothly integrated into the account. One of his
achievements is his willingness to let silence tell the story as much as any of the interviews,
depictions, or musical interludes. And the pacing of the film is flawless, the contours as varied as
a mountainside: at the very moment when Simpson’s survival is simultaneously most assured
and most threatened, a terrible pop song enters his mind and won’t leave. The moment is funny
and painful, painful as it demonstrates the damage dehydration and the elements have done to his
mind. While the acting in the reenactments (by Brendan Mackey as Simpson and Nicholas Aaron
as Yates) seems more physically demanding than emotionally or psychologically nuanced,
nonetheless the film is at once a breathtaking achievement and an unsentimental, life-affirming
mini-saga that will fascinate anyone with a pulse. Joel Whitney, screenwriter/poet, teaches at Fordham University
DVD Extras: The best thing about the interviews is that they are in no way sugarcoated or trite. Simpson
reveals more in “Return to Siula Grande” than the fact it was traumatizing to return, such as
the longevity of making the film and the distress in recreating his plight. Yates is similarly
candid. We get the impression, at one point directly from Yates, that the climbers aren’t exactly
friends. Simpson explains he wrote the best-selling novel that the film was based on to combat
the harsh criticism Yates faced from the climbing community for his actions. All interviews,
however, include similar and even some of the same footage, which makes watching them all
somewhat repetitive. Lisette Johnson
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Soon after British mountain climber Joe Simpson and his partner Simon Yates reach the summit
of the 21,000 feet Siula Grande mountain in the Peruvian Andes and begin their descent,
Simpson slips, badly shatters his leg, and expects to be left behind. Instead, Yates decides to
lower Simpson with climber’s rope down the mountain, and in his haste to beat an impending
blizzard, he, unknowingly, lowers his injured partner over a cliff. With three hundred feet of rope
between them and strong winds howling, the climbers find themselves incommunicado and at a
deadly impasse. This innovative and riveting documentary recounts this disastrous 1985 descent.
With a simple crosscutting technique blending interviews of the climbers and dramatic
reenactments, the film’s tension is relentless, and just bearable.