Review of North Face (2008) by Paul W — 09 Sep 2010

This is the best mountain climbing movie I've ever seen. It's also one of the best all-around movies I've seen in a long time -- I watched it two times in a row, something I almost never do. The cinematography is fantastic, but it's the story itself -- simple and straightforward, told in a no-frills Hemingway style -- that fascinates. The suspense, which builds as the climbers encounter escalating problems on the sheer north face of the Eiger, is exhausting. The ending in particular puts you through the wringer.

In a movie where all the actors stand out, Johanna Wokalek, who I first saw in The Baader-Meinhof Complex, manages to stand out just a little more -- she's brilliant. Seriously, if all German movies are this good -- and so far all the ones I've seen seem to be -- I may give up on Hollywood completely.