CLIMBERS ARE notoriously pernickety about films based on their perilous sport. Any director who dares to confuse a crimp with a crux is likely to receive a volley of angry e-mails. So, noting that some artistic licence may have been taken, I recommend this German drama to anyone keen to learn about a fascinating incident in sporting history.
In 1936, while the Olympics were kicking into action in Berlin, a group of climbers gathered to accept Hitler's challenge to scale the dangerous north face of the Eiger. If North Face is to be believed, the event turned into an unlikely spectator sport. While mountaineers edged up the vertical wall, journalists and tourists followed the activity through telescopes mounted on the balcony of a luxury hotel. Climbing, hitherto a private activity, became a very public one.
The film focuses most closely on the efforts of Toni Kurz (Benno Fürmann) and Andreas Hinterstoisser (Florian Lukas). The two men, both former soldiers, are tailed in their progress by two Austrian climbers and, when one of the latter suffers a serious injury, all four attempt a dangerous descent in deteriorating weather.
Director Philipp Stölzl, a veteran of pop videos, does a very good job of summoning up the visual ambience of pre-war Germany. With their chiselled faces, hawkish eyes and alpine clothing, the characters look as if they have emerged from a contemporaneous tourist poster or (the comparison is inevitable)
a propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl. The climbing sequences seamlessly blend studio footage with location work, and the performances are all suitably stoic.
That noted, it's hard to escape the feeling that the film could have been better. Though Stölzl details the progress of the climb with admirable clarity, he fails to make a satisfactory drama of the characters' personal interactions and somewhat fudges the political issues. A female journalist is dragged in as a superfluous love interest, and the protagonists' ambivalence towards the Nazis asks more questions than it answers.
None of which is to suggest you won't have your heart in your mouth for the entire third act. I wonder if it's all true.
Directed by Philipp Stolzl. Starring Bruno Furmann, Florian Lukas, Johanna Wokalek, Georg Friedrich, Simon Schwarz, Ulrich Tuker. 12A cert, Screen, Dublin, 121 min ***
