Before becoming one of British cinema’s most promising new talents with last year’s “The Last King of Scotland, director Kevin Macdonald was already regarded as one of the most established British documentary filmmakers, second only to Nick Broomfield (“Biggie and Tupac, “Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer ) .
His most famous pre-“Last King work is the Oscar winning “One Day in September (1999) about the Palestinian terrorist attack on Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.
His best work to date, the award-winning docudrama “Touching the Void, is one of the highlights of the recent documentary film program held at the American University in Cairo.
The film is adapted from the acclaimed non-fiction1988 book of the same title written by mountaineer Joe Simpson charting his survival story from the fatal events he encountered during a 1985 Peruvian Andes climbing catastrophe.
Back then, Simpson and his climbing partner Simon Yates, two over-confident Brits in their mid-20s, set out to scale the vertical west face of a 6,000-meter high mountain called Siula Grande in Peru.
The pair decided to climb the mountain Alpine style, an abrasive method that requires climbers to carry only their essential equipment and supplements without digging any hoards that can be accessed later. The Alpine style is widely considered as the purest form of mountaineering since the risk factor associated with such a technique is higher.
The two were well trained and in good shape. They made it to the top after three and a half days amid a blistering, snowy, but mildly-threatening climate the two eventually conquered.
Simpson and Yates were aware of the fact that 80 percent of all fatal climbing accidents occur on the way down. Nothing in their wildest imagination though could’ve prepared them for what was about to happen next.
The blizzards made it impossible for the two to detect the concealed crevices that would eventually lead Simpson to take a disastrous fall that broke his leg. In fact, the fall was so bad that it drove his lower leg far away from his knee joint.
Both men were roped together so that one would descend the other for about 92 meters; wait till the other fastened himself to a solid part of the mountain, then go down and repeat the process.
When Simpson was dropped down over a precipice, the two realized they were doomed. Yates couldn’t move unless the rope was tugged and Simpson wasn’t able to reach over anywhere to anchor his collapsing body.
Things went from bad to worse and in the end Simpson ultimately managed to defeat the odds through one impulse that never abandoned him: the basic will to survive.
To tell this extraordinary story, Macdonald visualized Yates and Simpson s narration through reconstructed footage of the events using two unknown actors and stunt doubles that actually include Yates and Simpson who, after several medical operations, went back to practicing their favorite sport.
Although we do know that Simpson will survive the accident since he appears in full strength on screen recounting the details of the 22 year-old-event, the film never loses its edge-of-your-seat appeal.
“Touching the Void is not only the most traumatizing film I’ve seen in this decade, it’s one of the most harrowing documentaries I’ve ever watched.
Macdonald steers away from cheap sentimentality that would ve most probably been employed had Tom Cruise, for instance, produced a full-length feature of the story. Instead, he unflinchingly follows Simpson s memories to reconstruct the nightmare.
There s almost no dialogue between Simpson and Yates; in fact, the actors hardly talk during the course of the film. The stark cinematography accurately captures the freezing, deadly weather both men were forced to endure for days. These scenes are so chilling and intense that you begin to sense Siula Grande s freezing surroundings.
Touching the Void, is similar, to a great extent, to the works of great German director Werner Herzog ( Aguirre, Wrath of God, Grizzly Man ). His films revolve around how nature is a sacred, hostile place that no man should attempt to understand, disturb or challenge.
Simpson and Yates state that mountaineering s appeal lie with the freedom and sense of space one experiences in these secluded areas. They deem mountains to be graceful work of nature; they never assumed for once though that there might be nothing truly graceful about a meaningless death.
Yet meaning is word that seems to have no connotation in Simpson s dictionary. Simpson confesses that he s an atheist; that if he dies, that s it. No afterlife; no heaven; he would simply cease to exist. He fought his way out of the abyss for the basic reason that he wasn t ready to vanish yet; because he didn t believe in anything else that might justify his demise.
Touching the Void is a great film because it never manipulates the viewers through soaking Simpson s story with a depth or a higher meaning. It s a psychologically, and physically, draining movie. Since its release, Void has done to mountains what Jaws did to sharks and oceans in 1975.
Trust me; you ll never look at mountains the same way again.
Touching the Void will be screened May 14 at 7:30 pm, Room 416 of the American University in Cairo s Main Campus.
