The North Face

Anyone lucky enough to have watched Kevin Macdonald’s absorbing 2003 doco Touching The Void will know that chronicling a factual mountain ascent can provide an enormous amount of tension and human drama. Philip Stolzl’s feature film, a dramatic depiction of a pre WWII German expedition, has much the same effect.

Set in 1936, The North Face depicts the gruelling attempt to conquer the previously unscaled Eiger by a competing posse of German and Austrian climbers.Director Stolzl, through the use of crisp cinematography and amazingly dexterous on location hand-held camerawork, is able to create and maintain excruciating suspense.At the same time it’s near impossible for these comparatively staid ground level interludes to reach the giddy heights, quite literally, of the climb and its inherent drama.

THE VERDICT...

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