In 1988, Joe Simpson shared his agonizing near-death experience on 21,000-ft. Siula Grande peak in the Peruvian Andes in Touching the Void. An unbelievably rugged peak that had never been scaled previously, Simpson and climbing partner Simon Yates successfully reached the summit, but met catastrophe during the descent. Beyond miraculous that the two men survived, it's no surprise that no one has challenged Siula Grande since then. Dedicated to his climbing partner, Simpson's book soon became a landmark in mountain climbing circles, as it wrestles with issues close to their way of life—the code of the mountain along with courage, endurance, and sheer will to live. Re-issued perennially in paperback, Simpson's book recently surged back into the best seller lists when Kevin Macdonald's docu-drama Touching the Void began its theatrical run.

I'm thankful that Kevin Macdonald took on this project—mountain climbing of this magnitude is something I (and over 99% of the population) can only relate to through films like this. To me it's enough challenge to climb the stairs to the top of Notre Dame or the dome at St. Paul's, so the most I could've done was camp out at the base camp like the Peruvian tourist the two climbers enlist to watch their gear. I'll gladly experience my mountain climbing from a theater seat, and Macdonald's film convinces me that this is wise. I thought the IMAX rendition of Everest was harrowing enough, but it's like a Sunday walk along Monet's water lily pond compared to Touching the Void. The last time I winced and grimaced as much in my seat was during a root canal procedure, yet I could emerge from the theater without taking dervocet.

Macdonald mirrors Errol Morris' Thin Blue Line techniques to shape his film, relying primarily on strong narratives from both Simpson and Yates with close-up camera shots and on amazingly realistic re-creations with other world class mountain climbers (Brendan Mackey as Joe Simpson and Nicholas Aaron as Simon Yates). Combining exterior shots of the formidable Peruvian Andes with closer shots of the Alps, the mountain climbing scenes are brutally realistic, frequently invoking total awe. What drives these guys to trek where no man has ever gone before—to risk instant death over unknown, inhospitable terrain in sub-freezing temperatures? Just cautiously inching their way forward through occasional blizzard-like conditions is like "touching the void."

Without knowing beforehand that the two climbers are alive and well, the narrative would be unbelievable. Merely climbing the vertical walls and dangerous powder snow near the summit is difficult enough to fathom, but when Simpson slips over an ice face to shatter his right leg with 19,000+ feet to go, the task seems impossible. As Simpson relates, his partner was perfectly within the code to leave him stranded on the mountainside. A round-about way would have been a mutually understood lie that he was "going for help." Instead, Yates comes up with a plan to use their 300 foot rope to lower his friend down in stages, although Yates freely admits that a fleeting secret desire had him wishing that Simpson had fallen off the mountain to free him from responsibility. Their odds for success were extremely low.

A subsequent accident puts Yates into a moral crisis at one point—without knowing why his partner fails to slacken the rope and feeling his toe hold slipping, he must either hang on or cut the rope. Left in limbo much longer would mean that they both might tumble off the mountain, so Yates chooses the latter course. This places Simpson into the realm of the impossible pivotal point of his life—staring hopeless void all alone. Just what does a man do when face to face with his mortality? Touching the Void explores this as directly without moralizing or proselytizing as possible, partially due to the fact that Simpson had grown away from religion and doesn't resort to pseudo-prayers or anything beyond his own capacities.

Hollywood would be hard pressed to create as dramatic a story as this. In fact, few could come up with more dangerous scenarios than Simpson's true-life story, nor could many develop characters the way they are revealed here. Place a man in a life-death situation, and you will see his inner character emerge. Thankfully, Simpson and Yates are both open and willing to share their insights—and they've certainly relived and confronted them over and over the past several years. A number of mountain climbers have criticized Yates for his actions, yet Simpson has loyally defended him. So this film may go a long ways to show the situation more clearly and demonstrate how both men applied the code of the mountain.

Kudos to the "actors" that re-create the situations with authenticity, taking falls and feigning Simpson's compound fracture with such realism that audience members audibly grunt in pain along with him. It's easy to transfer belief that these two are the real deal since their unshaven, sun burned, ice-encrusted faces make them nearly indistinguishable from Simpson and Yates, and they obviously have the necessary skills. It's a virtually perfect reconstruction of the events so chillingly recounted in Simpson's text. Fortunately, Tom Cruise's production company never got the project off the ground, so this possesses a truthfulness and purity not possible with a slick Hollywood vehicle.

As far as journey tales go, I'd stick with Peter Jackson's mesmerizing finale to top the films of 2003, but Macdonald's film isn't far behind. Very unlike his previous historical documentary, One Day in September, which relied heavily on archive footage from the 1972 Munich Olympics, Touching the Void unfolds suspensefully as drama. Even though we realize from the top that the principals will make it out alive, there are numerous times that mere surviving boggles the mind. Since the events are recreated in natural settings (short of actually breaking the actor's leg), it feels like we've witnessed the actual events, making Macdonald's project one of the year's best documentaries and the finest mountain climbing film of all time.