Rialto Movie Of The Week: Touching The Void

One of the year's most spectacular and suspenseful films is also the year's most astounding documentary. ''A very challenging day out'' is how phlegmatic British climbers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates perceived their 1985 bid to climb 21,000-foot-high Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. Getting to the top was no problem, but getting off the mountain was another matter. Halfway down, Simpson fell, atomized his left leg and had to be lowered by Yates on a 300-foot rope. Unbeknownst to a blizzard-blinded Yates, Simpson ended up dangling over a sheer precipice with no way to climb back up. Unable to hold on, Yates was forced into the climber's worst existential dilemma: to cut or not to cut the rope; to save himself or not to save himself, by letting his friend die.

Rating: M - Offensive Language, 106 mins
Genre: Documentary
Release Date: 19-08-2004
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