North Face

Ok, one more mountain climbing movie for ya.  I think this’ll be the last one for a while.  I’ve gotten my fill.

So it’s 1936 and the Olympics are coming up in Germany.  No one has reached the summit of the Eiger before and the country thinks it would be a nice thing to have done in time for the games.  So blah blah blah two teams, a German and an Austrian, attempt the climb and shit happens along the way.

And I mean serious shit.  These four guys end up banding together pretty early on because they know this is gonna be tough.  They come up against one obstacle after another and things get worse the higher they climb.  It’s all really exciting because each new problem changes their plans and how they deal with the mountain.  Also each new turn brings them closer to death.

The thing I was not prepared for was how sad this movie is.  You think things are gonna eventually turnaround for these guys but they just keep getting the shit kicked out of them.  Like one guy looses a glove so his hand freezes and another gets his head bashed by a falling rock.  It’s gets a little nasty to watch.  We get to know the German team pretty well because they’re supposed to be our heroes so that means the Austrians are kind of the bad guys.  Well it’s really only one of the Austrians that keeps making asinine comments about how they’re so much better than the German team.  And every time he makes one of those remarks his climbing partner looks at him like, “why are you such a dick?”  But like I said before they’re all in it together so you feel for all of them, even that one Austrian wiener.

The director, Philipp Stolzl, said he didn’t want to portray the Eiger as a villain with lots of low angles ‘n shit but rather shoot it in more of a documentary style.  And that was a cool move because in other mountain climbing pictures the mountain is talked about like it’s a living thing and/or a demon.  People are scared of it, curse it and create a mystique for it.  Like if only the thing wasn’t so mean and let people scale it easily then we could all get along and invite the mountain over for tea and cookies.  In this one there’s hardly any of that so I didn’t feel like the Eiger was to blame for the climber’s troubles.  They knew what they were getting themselves into and getting caught in a snowstorm and having rocks fall on you comes with the territory.  The mountain is just there.  It’s not evil.  If you try to climb it and get fucked up it’s your own fault not the giant rock’s.   

The photography of the scaling and of the mountain itself is beautiful.  While I was watching this I thought to myself, “either they found the perfect and most breathtaking stand in or this is some of the best CGI I’ve ever seen”.  Well on the DVD they show how they shot it all on a set and filled the rest in with computers later.  I was shocked because it’s seamless.  Why can’t all movies look this good?  When these guys are hanging there by their ropes and when they’re hiking through the ice fields their surroundings don’t look like glossy, shiny crap that a computer shat out.  They have texture and match the fake rocks that the actors are on real well.  So kudos to the filmmakers for making that shit work.

Just to let you know this is based on a true story but much of what’s in the picture didn’t actually happen.  The major points are true (four people really did attempt to climb the Eiger in 1936) but a lot of the details are made up for your cinematic pleasure.  It’s not a big problem in this case because the focus is on the scaling of the mountain and not on some other bullshit.  Sure they throw in a love story but I think it’s handled well and defiantly doesn’t take precedence over the adventure of a race to the summit.  

I guess all of these mountain climbing movies are kinda the same.  People climb, shit happens (somebody gets sick or injured, a storm moves in, supplies run out, etc.), a decision needs to be made whether to continue to the summit or head back down and whichever move they make their situation only gets worse.  But like anything there are varying degrees and I would say this is one of the best of the genre.  It portrays the feat realistically if not totally historically accurate with respect to character and circumstance.  But once again we have another picture that makes this shit look insane.  It’s just incredible that people climb these things in real life and almost kill themselves (or kill themselves) in the process.

One last thing, some versions of the poster have a swastika on it but this film doesn’t really have anything to do with Nazis, World War II or even Germany in the 30’s.  It’s purely about climbing a mountain.  Some clown must’ve put it on there to get people to stop and look at it to generate interest.  Well I can’t say it didn’t work for me but now you guys know better.