Pop Culture Reviews

North Face – DVD Review

For some, climbing a mountain that you know in your heart of hearts will most probably kill you is a passion and for a few, an obsession. There’s something deep and primal about man going up against nature but you kinda expect that the outcome will rarely be a positive one. Thus is the case for our adventurous mountain climbers from Germany and North Face is their story.

From a purely cinematic point of view, North Face is photographed beautifully. I’ve never been to Germany so I’ve never seen the Eiger Mountain but in this movie and from a distance, it really is beautiful and uncompromising and doesn’t look in the least bit threatening. For climbers Toni Kurz and Andreas Hinterstoisser, the challenge to face Eiger is overwhelming and cannot be ignored. After leaving the Fuhrer’s army to climb their mountain and make history as the first to do so, things start to really decline at a rapid pace.

Again, this is another movie supposedly based on the true story of the climbers who faced their most terrifying challenge ever only to succumb to a plague of bad luck, poor preparation and bad timing. Mother Nature it seems, is a more than formidable opponent and is captured in all her glorious fury as she unleashes her wrath upon the climbers. As they ascend the “Murder Wall”, the locals’ nickname for Eiger, step by painstaking step the climbers realise they are slowly losing their grip on their dream, their hopes and eventually each other.

North Face is similar to “Touching the Void” in the sense that it truly captures the essence of Man vs. Nature and the struggle of two friends with a dream to climb one of the most dangerous mountains in the world.