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Touching the Void

United Kingdom, United States

2003

106 Min
Color
1.85:1
English
  • Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
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DIR Kevin Macdonald

EXEC Charles Furneaux, Robin Gutch, Paul Trijbits

SCR Joe Simpson

DP Mike Eley, Keith Partridge

CAST Brendan Mackey, Nicholas Aaron, Richard Hawking, Joe Simpson, Simon Yates

ED Justine Wright

PROD DES Patrick Bill

MUSIC Alex Heffes

SOUND Joakim Sundström

Synopsis

In the mid-80’s two young climbers attempted to reach the summit of Siula Grande in Peru; a feat that had previously been attempted but never achieved. With an extra man looking after base camp, Simon and Joe set off to scale the mount in one long push over several days. The peak is reached, however on the descent Joe falls and breaks his leg. Despite what it means, the two continue with Simon letting Joe out on a rope for 300 meters, then descending to join him and so on. However when Joe goes out over an overhang with no way of climbing back up, Simon makes the decision to cut the rope. Joe falls into a crevice and Simon, assuming him dead, continues back down. Joe however survives the fall and was lucky to hit a ledge in the crevice. This is the story of how he got back down. –IMDb

Director

Original

Kevin Macdonald

Macdonald was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the grandson of the Hungarian-born English filmmaker Emeric Pressburger, and educated at Glenalmond College. He began his career with a biography of his grandfather, The Life and Death of a Screenwriter (1994), which he turned into the documentary The Making of an Englishman (1995). His brother Andrew is a film producer. Kevin is a 2nd cousin of comedian Norm Macdonald.

After making a series of biographical documentaries, Macdonald directed One Day in September (1999), about the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Possibly the most striking feature of this film was the lengthy interview with Jamal Al-Gashey, the last known survivor of the Munich terrorists (it has been suggested recently in Aaron Klein’s book Striking Back that another, Mohammed Safady, might also still be alive). Macdonald found Al-Gashey through intermediaries, and was able to convince him that the film would only be truly authentic if Al-Gashey gave… read more

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Samuel Andrade

5Jun13

★★★★ extreme decision making.

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lasttimeisaw

21May13

a wondrous miracle, great documentary, 8/10 my review: http://wp.me/p1eXom-Ps

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Classroom Battles

26Aug12

Oh my god. This is incredible, and MacDonald did an amazing job in the reconstitutions.

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pivic

28Jul12

I usually don't like sports films, neither endurance films, especially if either are plied with a constant, Hollywoodesque tear-in-the-eye effect. This film, however, is a far cry from those ones. It's gripping, scary, honest and human. It touches upon the breadth of trust and survival.

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[Last Film I Saw] Touching the Void (2003) [8/10]

By lasttim​eisaw on May 21, 2013

Title: Touching the Void
Year: 2003
Country: UK
Language: English
Genre: Documentary, Adventure
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Writer:
Joe Simpson
Cast:
Brendan Mackey…  read review

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