‘Touching the Void” starts out bleak and windswept and stays that way for the duration -- much like the brutal Peruvian mountain where most of the story takes place.
Shot in a pseudo-documentary style, it’s the true story of British mountaineers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates and their near-fatal attempt to climb Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes.
But it’s more than just a mountain climbing movie – it quickly turns into a story about trust, integrity and the tenuous connection that exists between two people relying on each other for survival.
Here’s the quick version of what happens:
They set up camp at the base of the mountain after days of travelling, and without much delay they start to climb -- Alpine style, carrying their gear with them in an attempt to summit and come down as quickly as possible.
They reach the summit, making a first ascent by following a route that has never before been climbed successfully.
On the way down, the climb takes a near-tragic twist. A storm sets in, visibility drops to near zero, and the two climbers – roped together for safety – get disoriented.
Unable to see more than a few inches in front of them, Simpson falls when a cornice crumbles underneath him. In the process his leg is badly broken – to the point that the shinbone is driven into the femur, splitting it into pieces.
When Yates catches up to his climbing partner, there’s little discussion about the situation, though both realize how grim it is. Darkness is setting in, and they come up with a desperate plan. Yates will lower Simpson down the steep mountainside – with him basically scraping across the ice and snow in a barely-controlled slide -- and eventually they may reach the bottom.
It’s not long before this risky plan falls apart. Simpson drops off a cliff and ends up suspended in mid-air, Yates hunkering down at the other end trying to hang onto a shifting snow bank to keep from being pulled over the edge himself.
This stalemate lasts for some time – Simpson tries to climb up but his hands are too frozen to tie the proper ascending device, and Yates can do little at his end.
Eventually, Yates does the unthinkable (but perhaps, arguably, the unavoidable) – and cuts the rope.
As if the story isn’t crazy enough, this is where it gets insane. Simpson drops smack into a glacial crevice, his life saved only by the fact he lands on a snow bridge that partially broke his fall.
I’ll try not to give too much away, but if you’re worried about spoilers you might want to stop reading here.
Joe is in an impossible position, but he’s confident that Yates, having severed the lifeline, will now hike down and find him, and help him climb out.
But he doesn’t, and this is where the story gets really sketchy.
About half of the film comprises interviews with Simpson and Yates done long after the incident. They look straight into the camera and tell their versions of what happened.
When explaining why he walked by the crevasse without bothering to look in, Yates said he quite simply just didn’t think of it. He assumed Simpson was dead, and thought he had a death sentence too, so he just kept going.
Meanwhile, Simpson was stranded in an ice cave faced with the horrifying decision: wait to die, or descend further down with the faint hope of finding another way out.
We know that they both make it out, because they’re alive to tell the story, but what Simpson goes through from there on, is an incredible story about fighting to survive when all signs point to pending death.
Yates, on the other hand, trots back to camp, admitting later that he tried to figure out along the way what he would tell Joe’s family about what happened.
And when he does finally arrive back, he decides to burn all his climbing partner’s gear – possibly the creepiest thing he did during the whole ordeal.
Meanwhile, Joe has been exposed for four or five days without food and little water, and is dragging his broken body down a rocky glacier.
What’s interesting is that the filmmaker doesn’t pass judgment on the climbers and the decisions they made. He doesn’t need to. The acted portions of the film show what happened in harsh detail, and the interviews with Yates and Simpson describe their different viewpoints.
Simpson never blames Yates and never condemns him for what he did -- he even absurdly dedicated his book about the incident to him. But at the same time, there’s not a scrap of warmth of camaraderie in his description of his climbing partner – he’s simply telling the story.
I thought that spoke volumes.
Yates too, never has a bad word to say about Simpson. He simply explains his thought-process and the rationale behind what he did – acutely aware that the audience is judging every word.
The film was shot on location with actors playing the climbers. But their faces are so bearded, wind-burned and frostbitten, that you barely notice when the shot goes form the interview room to the mountainside – and the people are different. In fact, it took a while before I even figured out that they were actors and this was a re-enactment of what took place, not actual documentary footage. That’s how well it’s done.
There’s a lot to this film. I’ve been thinking about it for a week now and trying to work out how I feel about what Yates did. I’d like to say I would have stuck it out – dragged my friend back up the mountain or died hanging on, refusing to let go. But who knows. Maybe I too would have eventually made the logical decision to cut the rope. I’m just glad I’ve never had to face that choice.
