SYNOPSIS
Based on Joe Simpson’s international bestseller, Touching The Void documents one of the most extraordinary true stories of adventure and survival of our time. Made by Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald, the film reconstructs the story of a fateful climb Joe Simpson and his mountaineering partner Simon Yates undertook in the Peruvian Andes in 1985. This feature documentary combines dramatic reconstruction of the climb and interviews with the two climbers it nearly killed.
May, 1985 – Peru.
Two ambitious young mountaineers, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, set off to scale the hitherto unclimbed West Face of Siula Grande, a remote and treacherous peak in the Peruvian Andes. They reach the summit but shortly after starting the descent, Simpson falls, shattering his leg. Since they are far from any hope of rescue, Yates attempts to lower his partner down the face of the mountain to safety. As weather conditions worsen, Yates inadvertently lowers Simpson over a 100 ft ice cliff, where he hangs at the end of the rope, his weight slowly pulling Yates off the mountain. When Yates can hang on no longer, he is faced with an appalling decision – should he allow himself to be pulled off the mountain to his death? Or should he cut the rope which binds him to his partner, sending him spinning into the void but giving himself the chance of life? Yates does cut the rope and returns to base camp, believing his partner is dead. But Simpson, who has fallen into a crevasse the size of St Paul’s dome, manages to escape and crawl down the mountain for three and a half days, in agony and without food or water, in an increasing state of physical and psychological deterioration. He makes it back to base camp just hours before Yates is about to leave forever