North Face

Never has there been such a beautiful ogre as the North Face. The villain is of course the Eiger mountain, but such is its malevolent absorption of life that the benign facade it presents makes it no less frightening. North Face, set in 1936, is rooted in the tragic ascent of two ambitious friends, Andreas Hinterstoisser and Toni Kurz, consumed by the challenge of the notorious Nordwand. Make no mistake; the cinematography is wonderful, fully realising the omnipotent might of the rock, but what impresses above all are actually the small things. Philipp Stolzl adds subtle dimensions to the narrative, capturing the highly politicised slant burdened upon Hinterstoisser and Kurz’s climb by glibly charismatic newspaper editor Henry Arau, portrayed by Ulrich Tukur without anything as clichéd as a sleaze complex. The eponymous mountainside has the last word though, and it’s easy to see why its deadly allure is so inviting.