by MATTHEW HAYS

There's a distinct place in film history for movies that maintain a solid aura of suspense, despite our knowing what the film's conclusion is anyway. Movies like The Day of the Jackal or Dog Day Afternoon, films that brimmed with tension even with our advance knowledge of their narratives' ultimate closure.

Touching the Void is one of those remarkable films. Based on the best-selling 1988 mountain-climbing memoir by Joe Simpson, the film recounts the harrowing journey of Simpson and mountain-climbing buddy (and fellow Brit) Simon Yates, as they ventured to Peru to climb the precipitous west face of Siula Grande, a 6,400-metre peak that needed to be climbed (as it had never been scaled before). The two managed to do so, in a precedent-setting move in 1985. But like most mountain-climbing accidents, theirs occurred on the way down the rock they'd ascended.

And the funny thing that happened on the way down the mountain has become legendary, at least in mountain-climbing circles. Struck by a storm on the way down, the two slipped, and Simpson shattered his leg; this was no ordinary shattering, you understand. The lower part of Simpson's leg crushed his knee and shot up through the upper part of his leg. Feeling his pain yet?

As per mountain-climbing etiquette, Simpson was attached to his mountain-climbing partner, Yates, by rope. But in what has become a notorious part of this true story, in utter desperation, Yates cut the rope rather than risk being pulled off the cliff himself. Simpson fell into a void. Yates, assuming Simpson was dead, headed back to base camp.

Frost bite me

But by some major miracle, Simpson didn't die. Despite his horrific injury, despite being lodged in a hole, despite the cold, Simpson managed to drag himself back to base camp just in the nick of time - Yates and a third fellow were just about to pull out. Simpson lost a third of his body weight in a few days, and weathered horrific frost bite.

It's an astonishing story, but one that so easily could have been screwed up on its way to the big screen. Not surprisingly, many were taken with the tale, especially in light of the success of Simpson's book. Sally Field's production company bought the film rights, and Tom Cruise was even slated to play Simpson in a dramatized version.

But thank Christ, that didn't happen. Instead, filmmakers sensed the difficulty in dramatizing a story with so little dialogue and virtually no interaction between characters.

Then Macdonald caught wind of the story, and thought about the possibilities for a movie version. The British director had already won a best-doc Oscar for his expert 1999 retelling of the Olympic hostage crisis at the Munich games in 1972, One Day in September.

Macdonald says part of his intrigue with the story is the rather major question of 'why?' The urge to scale huge mountains is something the director acknowledges not really fully comprehending. "There's no simple answer to that question," Macdonald says, on the line from his London, U.K. office. "That's one of the reasons I made the film. People do these extreme things - if there was an easy answer, the film wouldn't be nearly so intriguing. Why do people get into a space craft and fly to the moon? There must be some kind of adventurous spirit, of wanting to be a hero. Climbers are mysteries themselves."

Sensing this was no ordinary story - one full of drama and yet devoid of traditional dramatic conflict - he opted for an unconventional choice.

Touching the (critical) void

About half of the film is told in simple, straightforward, talking-head shots, in which our three mountain-climbing protagonists recount their varying perspectives on the tale. Intercut are dramatic reenactments, in which several actors take on the roles of the climbers. While this treatment of the story seems ostensibly simple, it's anything but. "This was the great challenge of the film: to make it work," recalls Macdonald. "I was terrified of what the response would be. I wasn't sure if it would work myself. Funnily enough, the reviews in Britain haven't even mentioned the recreations. But some American critics said they found them difficult. The LA Times review said what a great story, but they felt uneasy about the recreations. Which I found amusing, coming from L.A. In America, I guess entertainment and news have kind of blurred into this indistinguishable thing, which means that people want their documentary pure. Perhaps they've been put off by all this reality TV."

Macdonald's gamble, to make this collusion of doc and drama work, pays off brilliantly. As the story unfolds, we see the vicious weather conditions the mountain climbers faced, while also peering into their inner realities. In Touching the Void, it's as though we see three different novels unfold. Yates expresses his guilt for snipping the cord, wondering how his story will be interpreted upon his return to camp. Simpson confirms his own atheism as he looks into the face of death. And the third fellow, who wonders what's gone wrong when they don't return on time, confesses that he hopes the climber he likes the best is the survivor.

Touching the Void is no mere mountain climbing epic (trust me - I've no interest in the subject whatsoever). Instead, it becomes a Big Issue film that touches on mortality, friendship and survival. "What's surprised me about the reactions to this movie is how very emotional some people get while watching it," confirms Macdonald. "Audiences find that it raises a great deal of emotional stuff. Fifteen to 20 per cent of the people who've seen it come out in tears. It certainly brings up mortality and how we'll feel when faced with death. The big questions are all there. The film raises a bunch of questions: did he do the right thing when he cut the rope? Would I survive, under the same circumstances? That's been satisfying for me, in that people leave the cinema and have a debate. I like that in a movie, when it stimulates discussion."

Cutting too close to home

Macdonald's movie also broaches the subject of the mountain climbers' return to civilization. In a gesture of friendship many may find astonishing, Simpson completely forgave Yates for cutting the rope, stating publicly that he would have done the same thing himself. Others in the mountain climbing community differed, and Yates was actually physically attacked on at least two occasions by people who were outraged by what he'd done. In a beautiful gesture of friendship, Simpson wrote Touching the Void to exonerate his friend of all charges of wrongdoing.

Something the film doesn't fully recount is their return to the base camp, which Yates, Simpson and Macdonald did venture to do as part of the filming of the reenactments. "It was far, far worse than I or they had expected," recounts Macdonald. "They were very gung ho, but when we got there, Simpson began to have horrid flashbacks. He thought that maybe the intervening 20 years had all been another hallucination, and that he was going to wake up dying on the rocks again. He had panic attacks when he was hyperventilating. He found it all really tough. If they'd known how they were going to react, I doubt they would have gone."

But upon their return to Britain, it was Yates who had the bad reaction to the project. "Since coming back from Peru, Simon [Yates] really hasn't wanted to have anything to do with the film. It stirred up too many bad memories. You can see it in his eyes in the film, it stirred up a lot for him. He's had enough. Which is fair enough."

Macdonald had originally intended to have a five-minute epilogue sequence at the end of Touching the Void, in which the post-survival fates of the climbers are explained, but ultimately felt it didn't work. "But when it came down to the final cut, it seemed like it worked very well as it stood, and it felt tacked on. Instead, we've turned it into a half-hour short that will be included on the DVD. For once, a worthwhile DVD extra!"

Touching the Void opens Friday, Feb. 27

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