Touching the Void

Year: 2003 Rating: R Overall Evaluation: 8.0 Significance Suppositions Story Style 6.0 / 10 10.0 / 10 10.0 / 10 10.0 / 10 Click HERE for evaluation criteria.

Style

This film is a "docu-drama" shot on location at Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. It features a running commentary by the real Simon Yates and Joe Simpson (whose book of the same title is what the movie is based upon). To the best of my knowledge this is quite simply the best mountain climbing movie that has ever been made. It is absolutely devoid of Hollywood extravagance (e.g. the abysmal Vertical Limit), utilizing real climbers with real gear in real situations. It is absolutely believable - the actors who play Joe and Simon in the drama portions are perfect (too perfect at times). It makes for an amazing experience. There is almost zero gore (although there certainly could have been), rather they rely on the actors to express the agony (which is far worse). The only scene that would probably be considered offensive is a rather brutal cussing scene when Joe begins to lose it. This is, however, completely understandable in his situation and in my opinion not gratuitous at all.

Story

The story is both true and fantastic - it would be mesmerizing even if simply told around a campfire. It is essentially a tale of two young climbers who sought to climb the last great peak in that section of Peru that had yet to be bagged. It is a brutal climb and eventuates in Joe severely breaking his leg in a fall. Simon attempts a rescue that goes awry (to say the least) and the rest of the film concerns Joe's excruciating ordeal. If it wasn't a true story I would have thought it was completely ridiculous - it does not seem possible that someone could survive against such odds. Obviously he makes it (or he wouldn't be narrating the film!), but even knowing this and having watched it 3-4 times in the space of about one month I still find it gripping.

Suppositions

No suspension-of-disbelief required or accepted - this is a true story! Unfortunately Joe espouses atheism quite strongly, but he does not argue for it nor does it figure prominently in the story per se (see below).

Significance

Snippets of real life shot on film often make it difficult to find a "moral" or message. However, all great stories still fit the three act structure with Act Two ending at the climax. The climax here (obviously) involves Joe's overcoming the odds and pushing himself to survive. Thus, I suppose the message, if there is one, is to never give up. "Triumph of the human spirit" and all that. OK, that's fine. The reason I scored it so low is because of a particularly odd scene, one that I am not sure even needed to be included. At one point when Joe pretty much thinks it's all over for him the narration kicks in and he jumps into this short soliloquy on his catholic upbringing and how he left the church. He says he always wondered if, when the chips were down, he would reach out to God for help. His answer is chilling: "It never even occurred to me." He states quite clearly that he really does not think there is anything after death (i.e. "the void"). Then the story simply picks right back up as if nothing had happened. It's the only scene in the movie that really breaks the flow - it doesn't seem to fit. Now I said earlier that Joe's atheism was not a major component of the movie but it does greatly affect its significance.

Basically, if there is really nothing after death then life is ultimately meaningless. Whatever you do won't matter in 100 years or so - even if you leave behind a "legacy" it is doubtful anyone will remember or care in 200 years. How many of us can even name all our great grandparents, or know anything significant about them? Even if you want to say that all life benefits or suffers because of our actions - so what? In a billion years when the universe dies a heat death all will be lost . . . if, that is, there is no such thing as eternal life. However, if we do in fact move on to a second stage after death, and if our actions in this stage of life affect what is to come, then our lives are meaningful. The atheist has to create his own meaning, he is basically living an imaginary life - one created by his own mind. Thus, Joe's decision (as an atheist) to fight for his life was basically just an arbitrary choice on his part (he says in the film that it was due to his stubborn nature and not wanting to die alone). So the very heroism he showed is undercut by his worldview which espouses a meaningless universe where actions are not, at the end of the day, meaningful at all.

If I were to meet Joe someday I'd like to ask him how it is that his atheism can explain this drive to overcome, or his appreciation for the essentially useless beauty of uninhabited mountain ranges. Or how he even made it against such staggering odds. True, he might say that it was due to his courage and willpower. He might even blame God (if he believed one existed) for his broken leg in the first place. But though Joe's broken leg can be explained by gravity and bad climbing conditions (which he willingly and enthusiastically challenged), it will be far more difficult to explain some of the elements of his survival . . .

[SPOILER WARNING]

. . . like how he could fall 40 feet, break through the ice, fall another 20 feet down into a crevasse (without further injury!) and just HAPPEN to land on a tiny platform only a few feet away from another 100 foot drop. He would have to explain how he just HAPPENED to have enough rope (the leftover portion from the cut rope) to lower himself to the bottom of this crevasse (not to mention a remaining ice screw to secure it). He would have to explain how there just HAPPENED to be an opening to this crevasse that was within his greatly impaired ability to reach. He would have to explain how, much later, there just HAPPENED to be water available on the day he probably would have died without it. He would have to explain how he just HAPPENED to end up in the camp's latrine area (he was pretty much out of his mind at this point) - the smell of which revived him one last time with enough strength to call out for Simon (who should not have even been there)- who just HAPPENED to hear him (in the middle of the night with the chance of weather conditions that could have easily made this impossible).

It is these elements that saved Joe Simpson just as much as his hard head and will to survive. If any one of them had not been in place all his striving and pain would have been for nothing. But in an atheistic universe where all is random and meaningless, all these startling survival aids must be chalked up to chance - with his survival only meaning the opportunity for a few more years of ultimately meaningless existence.