Scream Of Stone

Think of Werner Herzog and most probably his 1982 film Fitzcarraldo, a classic of adventure film-making will come to mind. Scream Of Stone, the story of two world famous climbers, one an experienced mountaineer (Vittorio Mezzogiorno), the other an indoor rock-wall climber (Stefan Glowacz) who go head to head to be the first to climb Cerro Torre, a daunting snow-covered peak in Patagonia is in the same tradition (which goes back to the post-World War I genre of German mountaineering films such as The White Hell of Pitz-Palu). Unfortunately it is not remotely as effective.

The problems are legion but the heart of the problem lies with the routine script which was developed from an original idea by leading German mountaineer, Reinhold Messner.  How much of this is due to the fact that it is filmed in English is impossible to say (if the title is anything to go by, one can assume quite a lot) but from the get-go it is awkward and at times veers into the embarrassing.

Essentially the concept of a face-off between a mountaineer and indoor rock-wall climber is a naff one and the attempt to make it racy by having Donald Sutherland as a Svengali-like sports journo and throwing in a romantic rivalry between the two men over an attractive devotchka (Mathilda May) only makes matters worse.  The nutty pop-up Mae West-fixated mountain hermit (Brad Dourif) is at least an eccentric fillip in proceedings but it hardly makes the story any more convincing.  Dramaturgy has never been Herzog’s strong suit but Scream Of Stone is particularly ineffective in this department. The fact that the narrative is often clunkily discontinuous only makes matters worse.

In the latter stages the mountain climbing photography is as impressive with Herzog doing what he does best, pitting Man against Nature’s elemental fury, but for the most part Scream Of Stone is at best clumsy, at worst ill-conceived and bordering on the ridiculous.

 

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