Touching the Void

We went over to our friend Chris’s house tonight for movie night and to see friends and family and to check out his new furniture.  It was great to share time with some of my very favorite people after the somewhat hermit-like time in Alaska.  We had pizza and watched Touching the Void, which was quite an intense movie, some about luck, good and bad, some about the indomitability of the human spirit.  It’s the true story of two mountain climbers who successfully summit a mountain in the Peruvian Andes that had never been climbed before, and then run into a bit of trouble on the way back down.  From the official website: 

Joe Simpson and Simon Yates set out to climb the west face of the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. It was 1985 and the men were young, fit, skilled climbers. The west face, remote and treacherous, had not been climbed before. Following a successful 3-day ascent, disaster struck. Simpson fell a short distance and broke several bones in his leg. With no hope of rescue, the men decided to attempt descent together with Yates lowering Simpson 300 feet at a time in a slow, painful process that could have potentially been deadly for both. One further misstep led to Yates unknowingly lowering his injured partner over the lip of a crevasse. With the gradient having gone from steep to vertical, he was no longer able to hold on. Certain they were about to be pulled jointly to their deaths — the only choice was to cut the rope.

We actually kept laughing at the British flair for understatement and all that stiff-upper-lip stuff that results in memorable lines like, "I was really quite knackered," after days without food or water and inching down a mountain in whiteout blizzard 80 below zero conditions.  "I could really use a cup of tea."

And the ensuing controversy about whether to cut or not to cut the rope continues.  Apparently the purists want the top climber to sit there and freeze and not cut the rope, while he slides slowly down and over a cliff.  It’s a very complex situation; really a Hobson’s choice.  I can’t even imagine being in that situation, or really guess what I would do.  I suspect that survival really is all, in the end.

I really liked the alternating voice over narration by the two actual climbers.  You can see that Simon Yates is a tortured soul.  He uses the passive voice to describe "what happened to Joe" rather than "what I did to Joe," and when he finally says "I cut the rope," his eyes look away and his voice shakes.

Joe Simpson’s narration is incredibly poignant.  He talks about how he didn’t want to die alone like an animal in the wilderness and how when he thought he was going to die he still didn’t return to the lapsed Catholic faith of his childhood, but really believes nothing happens when you die except that you become part of the rocks around you. 

The movie ended rather abruptly, as though once they were back at base camp the story was through.  I want to know more about the ensuing controversy, and what happened to each of them afterward.  Now I need to read the book.