Review of North Face (2008) by Melvin W — 04 Nov 2011

Luise: When you're at the bottom - Toni once told me - at the foot of the wall, and you look up, you ask yourself: How can anyone climb that? Why would anyone even want to? But hours later when you're at the top looking down, you've forgotten everything. Except the one person you promised you would come back to. .

North Face is a mountain climbing film that tries to be a lot more than that. Overall it is a good movie, but I can't help but feel that it could have and should have been a whole lot better. I'm not saying it is bad, but I think the director, Philipp Stolzl, tries to do a little too much; when if he would have just stocked to the basics it could have been a lot more exciting on the ascension and much more suspenseful on the descension. .

North Face is the story of two young Germans who are attempting to be the first to climb North Face. They are racing two Austrians to the top, as many reporters and spectators gather at a hotel to watch and take part in history. Among the reporters is a woman, who knows the two Germans and loves one of them, that being Toni. She is excited to see them be the first to make it and never really shows any concern about them attempting it.

Where the movie goes wrong in my opinion is that it can't just stick with the climbers. It cuts from the mountain to the hotel every five minutes. The action is up on the mountain with the climbers, not down on the ground with people who are just sitting and talking. Also I don't think the love interest really added that much to the movie, except just to add another plot detail. Before the climb, I didn't really see the love being all that strong between the two characters. I'd have liked it a lot more had they cut out a lot of the scenes down below and added a lot more to the actual mountain climbing scenes. The scenes that take place on the mountain are tremendous. The scenery is beautiful at times and scary at times. .

While I don't feel like the movie was completely ruined, I was just kind of put off by some of the plot decisions. I enjoyed the experience though, as it was times an exciting, suspenseful and ultimately sad story.