NORTH FACE

The north face of the Eiger, an 1800 meter high wall of stone and ice in the Alps, has a mythic stature among European alpinists as well as in the wider culture.  Much of this has to do with the dangers inherent in scaling this mountain with it’s loose rock, ice fields and notoriously unreliable weather, which can blow in storms in an instant.  

In the summer of 1936, just before the now legendary Berlin Olympics, the Nazis were using mountaineering to hammer home their ideology of the superiority of the Aryan race, the idea being the German youth train themselves for death with their heroic willingness to tackle the most difficult feats.  This had also long been part of German mythology, how could it not with those great Alps outside the door and early filmmakers like    Arnold Fanck and Luis Trenker who took years to shoot their mountain films, on location.  This is where Nazi filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl got her training first acting in then shooting with Fanck up there amidst the blowing snowstorms and icy rocks.

That summer two young German men, Toni Kurz (Benno Fürmann) and Andi Hinterstoisser (Florian Lukas) decided to take a run at the Eiger Norwand,  Just one year earlier two of their idols had died, which  concerned, particularly, Toni, according to the film but they decided to go ahead, perhaps to avoid obligatory military service.  When they arrived at their camp at the foot of the mountain, several other teams were there planning to ascend, including an Austrian team, manned by Willy Angerer (Simon Schwarz) and Edi Rainer (Georg Friedrich).  Despite a rain delay of the planned start, the Germans set out before sunrise, with the Austrians, unfortunately, only paces behind them.  All of this is closely watched from the safe, hotel balconies of the Kleine Scheidegg by, among others two journalists from Berlin: Henry Arau (Ulrich Tulkur) a pro-Nazi propagandist and his assistant and childhood friend of both Toni and Andi, Luise Fellner (Johanna Wokalek.)

As we know from many tales of climbing history, it is often the weak who bring down the strong.  There would be no drama and thereby no film, if the climbers had easily gotten to the summit.  In this instance it’s the rock falls that are first in a chain of events that make an already dangerous climb, a nail biting, bone chilling life and death struggle.  With the Austrians following too close behind the new route, Toni and Andi are attempting to open, one is injured.  He stubbornly continues until he can go no further and that’s when the film really becomes an ordeal for everyone, including the audience.

It’s the kind of film that has you reaching for your coat, your fingers numb, teeth chattering.  The filmmakers used a combination of exterior locations with doubles on the most treacherous parts of the mountain during authentic weather for long shots.  With the actors they moved to safer mountain sections as well as a refrigerated warehouse (that sounds the coldest of all) for the tighter, close-ups.  But the matching is flawless, you will wonder, as did I, how they found climbers who were such good, and good-looking, actors.  

I won’t be a spoiled sport and give away the end, besides if you want you can find the answers on the web.  Two years later a four man team, which included the famous Austrian, Heinrich Harrer (Seven Years in Tibet ), made the ascent.  And for years after the North Face claimed lives, one famous disaster happening in 1957, where 3 of 4 climbers died and much controversy swirled around the survivor.  It all makes for a fascinating context, a bone-chilling, if not entirely dramatically developed film.  Then again, when you’re hanging off of cliff, who has time for emotional complexity?

North Face opens February 12, 2010.

Directed by Phillipp Stölz; written by Christoph Silber, Rupert Henning, Phillipp Stölz and Johannes Naber, based on a script by Benedikt Roeskau; cinematography by Kolja Brandt; music by Christian Kolonovits; edited by Sven Budelmann.  Released by Music Box Films.  Running time: 121 minutes.

With:  Benno Fürmann (Toni Kurz); Johanna Wokalek (Luise Fellner); Florian Lukas (Andi Hinterstoisser); Simon Schwarz (Willy Angerer) Georg Friedrich (Edi Rainer); and Ulrich Tukur (Henry Arau).