Frozen Faces

The Eiger is a very beautiful mountain in the Alps but it is also treacherous for those who try to climb it. Actually, it is the northwest face that has proved to be deadly to mountain climbers. Called Nordwand in German, many Germans refer to it as Mordwand, or murder wall.

In Germany, in the 1930's, mountain climbing was an enormously popular sport. Before filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl directed Nazi propaganda flicks like "Triumph of the Will", she was the lead in a slew of alpine films. Leading up to the 1936 Olympic Games in Munich, mountain climbing reached a fever pitch. Rumor had it that the first person to scale the Nordwand would receive a Gold Medal from Hitler himself in front of a hundred thousand screaming fans in the Olympic stadium. All of the top climbers in Europe flocked there to be the first to solve the "last problem of the Western Alps".

"North Face" is the based-on-truth story about two young German men, Toni Kurz (Benno Fűrmann) and Andi Hinterstoisser (Florian Lukas), who want to be first. Andi is the gung-ho guy, while Toni is hesitant, at first. Toni is the strong, silent type, with Andi being the headstrong, sometimes rash one.

Berlin newspapers are desperate for stories about "brave, young Aryan men", and by coincidence, young Luise (Johanna Wokalek), a girl in the office happens to have grown up with our two young climbers, so she is dispatched to interview them and then sent to the Eiger where she sees her young friends again. In reality, Luise never existed but we always need a love story, don't we?

Director Philipp Stőlzl does an outstanding job with the mountain climbing footage. You really feel like you are up there with them. He cuts away from the mountain to show the wealthy patrons in the chalet far below. The scenes at the chalet are a bit tiresome but they serve as respites from the endless horrors encountered by our heroes. In the end, "North Face" is definitely worth seeing, both for its great action and for its insight into the psyche of a time and place that many of us can't really understand.