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Germany 2008
Directed by
Philipp Stoelzl
120 minutes
Rated M

Reviewed by
Bernard Hemingway
3.5 stars

North Face

Like many ordinary mortals, I suspect, I find people who do things like trek to the Poles or climb to the top of the Himalayas virtually incomprehensible. Even more so in the case of people who did such things before there were helicopters, high-powered radios and thermal underwear.  

North Face is based on the true story of four such people - two Germans (Benno Fuermann and Florian Lukas), and two Austrians (Simon Schwarz and Georg Friedrich). who in the summer of 1936 attempted to climb the previously unscaled North Face, known as “The Death Wall”, of The Eiger in Switzerland.  The actual climb is anticlimactic as the men are defeated by the weather and are forced to retreat. In the days of the ascendant Third Reich, immediately prior to the 1936 Olympics, this is not a good thing. Indeed Philipp Stoelzl makes this a central part of the screenplay as the pro-Nazi editor (Ulrich Tukur) of a Berlin daily newspaper wants to abandon their story as soon as he realizes that they are not going to succeed. His secretary, Luise Fellner (Johanna Wokalek), an aspiring photojournalist who when younger was a companion of one of the Germans, insists on staying behind to make sure that they descend safely.  

A good deal of the film is given over to the contrast between the physical privations of the men on the mountain and the dangers facing them and the cosseted lives of the people watching them from the comfort of the chalets below. The film also contextualizes the climb within the Nazi propaganda program and bolsters it with the unrequited romance between Luise and Toni. The real substance and drama of the film, however, is the climb and the tragic descent itself. This is so well done that one really wishes that Stoelzl had been rigorous enough to concentrate more on this unique and gripping material than waylaying it with rather generic narrative elements.

DVD Extras: None

Available from: Madman

 

 

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