TOUCHING THE VOID [2003] review

I had of course long heard about TOUCHING THE VOID, but only finally watched it tonight.  I didn’t even know if it was a documentary or a feature film until I checked IMDB right before starting it.  I would call VOID a mixture of documentary and feature film since there is so much dramatic and amazing reenactment mixed in with just the right amount of talking head scenes.  

VOID describes the harrowing tale of two young British mountaineers attempting to alpine climb the face of a mountain in the Andes that had never been done before.  Obviously since they made a documentary out of the story, it was not a cakewalk to the summit and back down.  However, as you see the two actual men some 20 years later, you do know they survive right from the get go, but not until the very end do you actually let yourself believe it.  Countless times I thought, “how the F is he going to get out of that?”  Countless times.  This happens in most action movies, and then some gimmick happens making it easy to see how they will survive.  

There are no gimmicks in VOID.

Just pure, ultimate display of the human spirit’s will to survive and what a Man can accomplish if his will is strong enough.  

I found myself relating to the survival techniques used.  Recalling an internal voice mercilessly telling you to keep carrying on, I heard that voice at times in the past when out hiking myself (in particular climbing out of the Kaibab trail in the Grand Canyon).  In my case, it was only for a few hours, not days.  

Truly amazing and truly inspiring story.

And I’ve written this in past movie reviews—watching a movie in HD is an entirely different experience.  I watched a 720p version of VOID and it was stunning and helped me feel totally immersed in the snow, the vistas, the glacier, the crevice, the mind of the two men.

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