Touching the Void **** (2003, Brendan Mackey, Nicholas Aaron) – Classic Movie Review 10,767

Director Kevin Macdonald’s 2003 Touching the Void is the breathtakingly exciting and awesome Bafta award-winning documentary-style drama, re-creating the events of 1985 when two mountaineers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, try to scale the west face of the Peruvian Andes’ Siula Grande mountain, a feat of skill, courage and daring previously unaccomplished. On the descent they find themselves in great, life-threatening danger.

Brendan Mackey and Nicholas Aaron play the two climbers, Joe and Simon. The real Joe and Simon act as narrators. it is based on Joe Simpson’s book.

The film-makers took Joe and Simon back to Peru to shoot on the glacier and terrain where the events took place. Local mountaineers were filmed on the glacier, but did not climb the mountain as Joe and Simon felt it was too dangerous.

Kevin Macdonald and John Smithson (producer) won the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film at the BAFTA Awards (2004).

Kevin Macdonald won an Oscar for One Day in September (1999) and another Bafta for The Last King of Scotland (2006).

Touching the Void is directed by Kevin Macdonald, runs 106 minutes, is made by Darlow-Smithson, Film Four and UK Film Council, is released by Pathé, is written by Joe Simpson, is shot by Mike Eley and Keith Partridge, is produced by John Smithson and is scored by Alex Heffes.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,767

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