jlrohr This is one of the most amazing stories you will ever watch. I can watch this movie 3 times in one day and still not get bored. Amazing story of survival. The extras on the DVD are also seriously worth taking the time to invest in - interesting to see Simon's reaction to everything that happened. I personally really identify with him but I can see that some people would find his reaction quite cold/callous. I cannot even begin to imagine how Joe felt when he realised he was stranded inside the crevasse and Simon had cut the rope. Only thing in this movie that bothers me is the Boney M song - quite disturbing at the point at which it is played! 100% must view movie.

neil-upto11 'Touching the Void' is the most extraordinary story of survival I have ever encountered. It is brought to life through the fantastically creative talents of the film maker and the honest, moving accounts of the protagonists.The story is so incredible that it is actually difficult to imagine how survival was possible - even though we are being told the story by those involved! The film is technically brilliant and does not succumb to overly dramatic devices - not least because it doesn't need them: if you are not absolutely transfixed by the simple facts then no amount of special effects and invasive music would move you.I thoroughly recommend this film / story as the very definition of determination in the face of impossible odds.

secondtake Touching the Void (2003)There are exactly three characters in this movie, and one amazing, almost unbelievable event. The three young men appear both as themselves, in interview form, and as characters, played by three actors who do all the actual action in the film.It's non-fiction, or "based on fact," even though it's all re-enactment. The truth is in the story, the scenes of climbing and falling and freezing and barely surviving are all made to illustrate that story. And the experience is uncanny, disturbing, exhilarating, and mind-blowing. The experience, that is, of vicariously reliving their experience. This, in essence is the film.You wouldn't think it would hold up, two hours of this. The two main climbers even tell you right at the start, by their presence in front of the camera, that they survived. So there is no wondering who died. But that's all good. What we see is not only what did actually happen so that they did not die, but also how it affected them, and how they have come to tell the story, which is not at all ordinary. Their candor, their almost chipper recounting of very horrible facts, is exciting to watch.This won't be everyone's cup of tea. I watched it the same night as "North Face," a more recent and well done story of climbers in 1936, based on facts. That movie was fictionalized, and dramatized, in a normal sense. It had no documentary edge, really. It was more beautiful and more engrossing, perhaps, but it wasn't nearly as chilling. This, "Touching the Void," finds a way to get into your bones and make you questions some very important stuff about morality, death, endurance. Both movies make clear how horrible it is to have things to wrong on a high alpine peak. The cold, the physical stress, and eventually the realization that you aren't likely to make it are in both movies. Very intense all around. And "Touching the Void" does find a special place in how the story is told, with the voiceovers of the survivors as they are apparently falling or freezing to death.

Cosmoeticadotcom The simplest of words can sometimes convey far more than the most elaborate action scenes. This runs counter to the whole 'a picture is worth a thousand words', yet is nonetheless true.This film is a docudrama about two young British mountaineers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, who in 1985 decided to become the first men to ever scale a treacherous Andean peak in Peru called Siula Grande. They left for their task with a third climber who was to wait at their base camp- Richard Hawking.The film documents the weeklong adventure Joe and Simon had. The first three days were rather uneventful, and the duo reached the summit. It was on the way down that trouble hit. Freak storms were the first augur of bad things to come. Then Joe broke his leg and Simon was left to innovate a technique to lower his partner down the mountainside in 150 foot increments. Then, a second accident befell the duo. In a blizzard, Simon lowered Joe over an overhang that hung over a massive crevasse. When Joe could not signal what had occurred Simon was left in the precarious position of being unable to lift his partner back, and slowly being dragged down the face himself. After a few hours with no signal from Joe Simon made a fateful decision to cut the rope to Joe, assuming he had died and was a dead weight, lest he face sure death as well.Joe fell into the crevasse, where he dangled for hours. The next morning, a shaken Simon looked in vain, and assumed his partner had died. Simon made it back to the base camp, nearly dead from frostbite, and needed a few days to recover physically and emotionally with Richard. Joe, meanwhile, after much frustration, lowered himself into the crevasse and made his way out, then spent several days painfully eking his way down the mountain with an improvised splint, over glaciers and rock fields. The last night that Simon and Richard were at camp they heard Joe's cries and were shocked that he survived…. this is a terrific film as documentary and adventure. A viewer can understand why these adventurers do what they do, as well as recoil from it. Watching Joe Simpson narrate his tale you can see him do both at once, sometimes. It's in those fleeting moments that the viewer gets why this film was.