Man vs nature – 127 Hours and North Face

127 Hours

Christmas rolled around and I still had not seen 127 Hours. So with much trepidation that was the movie chosen for Christmas eve. Of course the story of Aron Ralston, the intrepid mountain climber who got his hand stuck under a boulder in a rock fall, is very well known so one has a good idea what to expect from the film. The unexpected comes in the form of James Franco and Danny Boyle’s treatment of the subject matter. The cardboard cutout bad boy of Spiderman has grown up to be a fine actor, filled with fun and gravity at the same time. The trip planning begins and as Aron (Franco) runs around throwing things into his backpack we are shown a Swiss Army knife that is too far back on a top shelf, out of reach, and the camera lingers on it for a few extra seconds. Similarly it lingers on a slowly dripping faucet in the apartment. Thus the stage is set, there will be moments when the Swiss Army knife will be sorely missed and water will be in extreme shortage. As in Aron’s book “Between a Rock and a Hard Place”, the movie zigzags between Aron’s past life and his present predicament and we wait with trepidation for what has to come.....


If 127 Hours was most unsuited as a holiday film, the follow-up was a shockingly worse pick! 127 Hours showed us how a man with indomitable will could triumph over nature. Yes it was a harrowing tale, but not as harrowing as my next Man vs. nature film. The 2008 German fictional film North Face (German title Nordwand) has some basis in historical facts and recounts a famous 1936 attempt to climb the Eiger north face. The pair of German climbers Toni Kurz (Benno Fürmann) and Andi Hinterstoisser (Florian Lukas) resign from the German army to make their attempt on the Eiger. Word is out that the German government is very anxious to see the peak scaled and they want the glory to be theirs. There is also a team of Austrians who are backed by a newspaper to scale the peak. Eventually the Austrians team up with the Germans who are further ahead, presaging the Anschluss, the Nazi-led incorporation of Austria into Germany. A young, awkward and gauche newspaper employee (and friend of the German climbers; Johanna Wokalek) looks to launch her career based on the story of the German triumph over the Eiger and is egged on in her quest by her cynical boss (Ulrich Tukur). Both stay at a luxury hotel at the foot of the Eiger and watch the attempt through telescopes, all the while trying to capture the audience reaction on camera.
We are told, as per legend, the Eiger is inhabited by an ogre – and that is how the mountain gets its name. As the two pairs of climbers start their ascent using an unconventional route, things start to slowly go very wrong.....

Read more about both films at LINK