Touching the void

I'm on a movie review roll! The other night, last night, I watched Touching The Void. A documentary about the survival of two mountaineers who tried to climb Siula Grande, in Peru, in 1985.

This film was a retelling of that story. They interviewed the two survivors,and re-enacted their story for the audience to see while they talked about their ordeal. It was very intense, and a beautiful REAL story about how these two men overcame overwhelming odds. Joe and Simon, the two mountaineers, successfully climbed Siula Grande. It was on the descent that the accident happened. Joe broke his leg. The odds that Joe managed to get off the mountain, alive, gives me shivers just to write about it. During their descent, Simon was lowering Joe, and they got stuck on the edge of a precipice. Sitting there, for over an hour and a half, Simon did the unthinkable. He cut the rope leading to his partner. Both thought the other had perished, and both made it back to base camp, on their own. The description of what they faced, and how they faced it, each alone, thinking the other was dead, made for a riveting tale.

Eighteen years later, in 2003 when the documentary was made, no one has repeated what they have done, which was to scale Siula Grande and come back alive.

A definite tale of courage, determination, and will. I highly recommend this film.