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Touching the Void

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United Kingdom, United States · 2003
Rated R · 1h 46m
Director Kevin Macdonald
Starring Brendan Mackey, Nicholas Aaron, Richard Hawking, Ollie Ryall
Genre Action, Adventure, Documentary

A documentary on Joe Simpson and Simon Yates' disastrous and near-fatal 1985 attempt to climb Siula Grande, a towering mountain located in the Cordillera Huayhuash region of the Peruvian Andes. Based on Joe Simpson's book of the same name.

Stream Touching the Void

What are people saying?

What are critics saying?

90

The New Yorker by Anthony Lane

Kevin Macdonald has a terrific tale on his hands, and his telling of it, very British in its matter-of-factness, can barely be faulted; yet the facts drop away, and it becomes impossible not to read the movie symbolically--as a journey to the center of the earth, or farther still.

80

Village Voice by Jessica Winter

Unexpectedly bridges genres -- it's a buddy movie, a horror story, a boy's-own adventure, and a near metaphysical meditation on the limits of human endurance.

83

Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum

The story itself is so powerful and troubling, the moral geometry so vertiginous, and the photography so big that anything other than the natural sounds of snowfall and footfall is a Flat Earth Society intrusion.

90

The Hollywood Reporter by Michael Rechtshaffen

Factoring in Mike Eley's breathtakingly vivid photography and a virtuoso sound mix that completely envelops the viewer, it's enough to make you never again want to poke your head into the freezer.

70

The A.V. Club by Scott Tobias

At its heart, Touching The Void contends with the physical and spiritual dilemma of facing the unknown and overcoming paralyzing fear in order to emerge reborn on the other side. But the film's appeal is even more fundamental than that: It's just one of those stories that catches the breath, no matter how often it's told.

90

Variety by Todd McCarthy

Uses first-person on-camera accounts of the adventure by Simpson and fellow climber Simon Yates to backdrop newly shot you-are-there footage that brings home the awesome and harrowing aspects of their feat.

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