Touching the void

Touching the Void is a 2003 documentary based on the book with the same title (1989 NCR Book Award) written by Joe Simpson.
Both book and documentary narrates the real tribulations of three Brits, two of them mountaineers: Joe Simpson and Simon Yate, and Richard Hawking, during their 1985 attempt on the conquering of an untouched mountain so far then: Peruvian Siula Grande (20,813 ft/ 6344 m.) by its West side.

Big mountain mama - Siula Grande

This peak was attempted by others in the past with no success and was The doc,was actually reconstructing the events by 3 actors representing the protagonists of the real voyage together with the
interviews of the mountaineers. Both Joe and Simon really came back to the famous mountain chain in order to do the documentary.

The Glacier Hell

And this is what really happened:
Joe Simpson, Simon Yate and Richard Hawking parted on 1985 on a climbing journey into the heart of the Huayhuash mountain range. Donkeys take them 5 miles from the base of the mountain and Simon and Joe leave Richard at base camp and the two began climbing the pick, first the rocky slopes, then passing by the lake, geting into the glacier and finally hitting the vertical icy walls of this beauty of nature. Joe leades, Simon folows, as in the old days: one rope connecting both and no staring back. They actually did fairly well on their ascent, though they were surprised of the dimension of the mountain and its peculiar shapes created by the icy snow.

Joe Simpson descending

The ascend took, due to the bad weather, more than the expected and they run out of gas for their stove = they couldn’t melt snow and in order to drink water. Finally the two of them made it into the top, where they could see the other neighbor peaks composing the Cordillera (mountain range) Huayhuash of the Peruvian Andes:
the tallest Yerupaja of 6617 m., Sarapo, Carnicero, etc,…

Joe Simpson during the slow descending

The weather wouldn’t let a lot of space for mistakes for it was very foggy and there was a snow storm while they began to descend the top. Joe was leading the way and on a decisive instant, committed the mistake of stepping forward without actually seeing what was before him and he felt and in consequent broke his leg. In a situation like that, the low temperatures could make your body freeze under the absent of movement.

Siula Grande area map

Mountaineering history was filled with cases of one partner leaving the injury climber behind so the fit one could get some help and go back to the mountain but Simon decided to take Joe on his descend by using a 300 m rope to let Joe slowly slip down hill. During this process, Simon let accidentally Joe slip to fast into the mouth of a deep cliff without knowing it.

Into the frozen cave

There there was Joe, holding with his whole body weight from the rope, watching the cliff and the 60 m of free falling and could not let Simon know what was happening. Simon, on the other hand, was anchored with his feet into a snow hole made with his feet and feeling the stress of the rope fruit of his partner whole wait pending on air, but Simon didn’t know it; what he knew was that his strength to keep the situation as it will soon reach to an end in which he would be left with only two options: either joining Joe in the free falling into the high cliff or cutting the rope so at least one mountaineer could make it and tell the story.

The base of the mountain

Simon made up his mind and extracted his Swiss knife from his pocket and used it. Here is where Joe’s adventure started with the free falling of tens of meters that must have killed him already, during his several days of solo descending though frozen caves, snowy slopes, rocky areas and all without water and a broken leg, very little odds to make it alive.

Through the glacier

In hindsight however, Simon, after descending till the place where Joe felt, he would even looked into it and search for his partner for he it was clear to him Joe could never have made it from that fall and continued towards the camp.

The three Britons + Joe way back on donkeys and rehabilitating

Finally a 2/3 less of body weight Joe will make it into the base camp after three days and five miles, delusional, thirsty to death and cold as hell to joing his two other partners that were preparing to leave the camp after several days of waiting for Joe, convinced Joe died.

Siula Grande + the lake

The film director, Kevin MacDonald, actually took the two mountaineers during the filming days in the mountain and Joe
experienced post traumatic stress syndrome.The film was release on 2004 and made during its first week 96 k usd and a global total of 13 mil usd to date. Touching the void won the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film at the 2003 BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards and was featured at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.

Siula Grande map

After news arrived to England of the happenings in the mountain, the climbing community was furious with Simon but these news were not accurate and the real story was cleared out by Joe and Simon and both continue to this day, Joe after 6 surgical interventions, to climb worldwide. Joe always supported Simon on the decision he took at all moments.

Joe Simpson

In 1999, Carlos Buhler (US) and Mark Price climbed the Siula Grande by the west face and made it into the top, returning to the bottom by rappeling. Not many other climbers actually made it into this mountain due, among other factors, to the political dangerous situation created by the Sendero Luminoso (Maoist guerrilla terrorist movement).

Based on the real story of Ted Bundy, the first modern serial killer who was active during the seventies in the US. Though the actual number of victims that met his rage is still unknown, it is  estimated that they range from 35 to 100.

He used to strangle his victims after bludgeoning them, also raping and practicing necrophilia with them.

It’s amazing how casual the guy seemed and how easy it was for him to accomplish what he had set out for himself, i.e – the commission of murders. The movie is not as bloody as expected though and the results are already historically known to all – he got the chair, a special, electrifying one, which made him feel 3000 volts run through his spine. Score: 5.5

Africa Addio (En: “Africa Blood and Guts”) is an Italian documentary prepared in 1966 by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi, about the transition that African States made, from colonial provinces to free countries. This piece is indistinguishably a part of a time when certain norms of film shooting were acceptable, such as editing voices without restraint, adding effects unmercifully as well as other sounds, but the peculiar aspect of this doc lies in the veracity of its images.

It describes an important part of the history of Africa and of the countries who made it part of their colonies such as Great Britain, Portugal, Belgium, France or the Boers. In most of the cases, these transitions were bloody and cruel, like only humans can carry out, leaving the weakest link to receive the worst blow. After the departure of the white man, local leaders, tribes and guerrillas started to fill the vacuum of power left behind, even through the commission of what we call today crimes against humanity.

Rape, amputations of body parts and cannibalism were only part of the means used to express the hatred against the white man and against anyone related to them. And so, missionaries, Arabs, Muslims, Indians and others were targeted. Needless to say that wild fauna was the first to be massacred, as dire times arrived.

Although the white man formed an intrinsic part of modern slavery and the exploitation of the African natives, well before the first white man touched this continent, slavery was a common practice conducted between different black tribes. According to some historians, Arabs were also responsible for a major part of this business and for the enslavement of almost 18 million persons along the years, compared with 12 million slaves that were transferred to the Americas. Nevertheless, white people were responsible for the second wave of African exploitation, by appropriating the African continental resources to the benefit of western countries, but let´s not forget – always with the collaboration of local politicians, leaders and chiefs.

All and all, and until the last of the colonies, African black natives were freed for the benefit of a small black elite who keeps enriching itself at the expense of the multitudes.

Narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, this is an eye-opening documentary about human cruelty inflicted upon animals, and about the hypocrisy of humans, who unhealthily, immorally and abusively consume everything  that comes from animals, conduct experiments that aren’t lifesaving on them, use them for entertainment purposes, skin them, etc.,…and all in a mass-production way, so as  “to cut expenses”. For example, “let’s keep skinning the foxes but without the expensive anesthesia”.

We humans are hypocritical because at the same time we involve ourselves in this carnival of the senses, we turn our heads and intentionally ignore others’ suffering, we will eat our foie gras but will comfortably choose not to khow how it was “produced” and will even say “why would they show us these things on tv?”. Well, if we have what it takes to enjoy the foie gras, we better have the stomach to deal with the torments the duck goes through, just to be served on our adorned platter. The next time you eat anything that is made of cows, be aware that it was most probably de-horned without any anesthesia, that it was given antibiotics, and that its excruciating death was as slow and Dantesque as you can imagine any death in a torture chamber to be.

Animals skinned alive for our clothing

We are a global species and are the end consumers of all of these products originating from the animal world. We know very well that animals are helpless when it comes to defending themselves against us, more sophisiticated elevated sense of being. We also know that the indifference and insensitivity we have developed over the years toward the suffering of our fellow-animals, will only lead us to be bound to do the same against under another human, or as Leo Tolstoy put it: “As long as we have slaughtered houses we will have combat fields”; For you cannot be the same individual after you cut a small’s animal testicles with your bare hands, or when you burn an animal alive, or when you skin another animal alive, or when you see animals agonizing from pain after the blows you have inflicted on them. We are what we eat and what we do, and no painful death can go unfelt  in the meat we eat.

slow painful death so we can eat a steak, totally concious in video

Next time you go to a zoo, don’t buy a ticket when they tell you “that it’s educational”, for there is nothing that you can learn from an animal in captivity, it is either a physically or mentally sick animal.

Also, the next time you visit San Fermin or a rodeo, acknowledge the fact that you are  a sadist, or that you don’t mind watching another being’s suffering till death just for you to “have fun”.

The nest time you visit a circus, bear in mind that you are only watching how an animal was taught to perform under physical constraint and fear of physical punishment, only to perform tricks for your eyes. Do not be surprised if the animal eventually retaliates.

The next time you take your usual Bayer aspirin or the product of any other corporation, Colgate or the others, keep in mind the great number of animals that have been systematically tortureed, even when they know that if a testing on an animal had positive results, they will still have to test on humans.

Next time you see someone from Al Qaeda decapitate some journalist’s head, be aware that he probably “practiced” previously with animals, so that you and I can eat them.

It is in our hands to decide whether we should cause so much suffering, torture, agony and slow death during the lives of animals so that they may serve to feed us, dress us and entertain us.  If there is a G-d out there, I definitely do not think that he would ever take all of this that we are committing, for granted.

Score: 10

Those who are left behind are the side-effected victims of this phenomenon, who remain with many unanswered questions: “What if I…?”, that mark episodes from their past.

Only one individual appears to have survived after jumping from the bridge, staying alive to tell the story, after only having broken some vertebrates. Amazingly, a seal helped him to stay on the water surface until the coastguards arrived.

The police has apparently become so accustomed to this jumping phenomenon, that police officers patrol in the vicinity of the longest pending bridge, only to ask potential suicide victims whether they intend to jump from the bridge or not.

Score:5

He takes his old car and heads to Alaska ready to face all kind of ordeals and adventures. He decides to let go all material things, burns his money an stars his way mingling with nature on a highway to self encounter. On this he will find interesting aquentances who which he shares knowledge and thoughts.  Picture is awesome, music likewise.  Sean Penn, well done! Score: 7