7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Set in 1936, centers around four mountain climbers who attempt to climb the north face of the Eiger Mountain in Switzerland and the tragic events that follow.
Starring: Benno Fürmann, Johanna Wokalek, Florian Lukas, Georg Friedrich, Ulrich TukurDrama | 100% |
History | 86% |
Foreign | 84% |
Sport | 9% |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
German: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The 1936 Olympics in Berlin are remembered largely for two disparate elements. First, they were meant to showcase the resurgence of German national pride and Hitler’s achievements as well as the Nazi ethic. Second, they produced an unlikely hero in Jesse Owens, the African American sprinter and track and field athlete whose triumphs as the most successful Gold Medalist that year completely upended Hitler’s planned scenario of a games proving so-called Aryan superiority. But there might have been another story appearing as at least a sidebar to the main Olympics coverage had a now not very well remembered attempt to conquer the Eiger’s North Face been successful. While other legendary mountain climbing efforts like the conquering of Everest have entered public consciousness to a remarkable degree, few outside of Europe in general, and most specifically Switzerland, Germany or Austria, probably know much about the history of trying to ascend one of the Alps’ most dangerous peaks. In fact, for many in the United States, the name Eiger probably will mostly only evoke memories of the Trevanian spy thriller The Eiger Sanction, which Clint Eastwood filmed in 1975. But the Eiger was seen as a sort of divine test the Almighty had placed smack dab in front of the German people, who in 1936 considered themselves genetically predestined to prove their athleticism and dominance over nature by placing the Nazi flag atop the mountain’s 13,000-plus foot peak by way of the slab’s treacherous North Face, which had already claimed two German climbers’ lives in 1935. North Face takes the basic history of a quartet of climbers who were supposedly undertaking this probably insane task for the greater glory of Hitler and Nazism (more about that a bit later) and (as seems to be the trend for films “based on a true story”) then fictionalizes quite a bit of the story to middling effect.
North Face is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Music Box Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This is often a spectacularly sharp and well detailed high definition presentation, especially with regard to both close-ups, where fine detail is commendable, to the many lovely (and, later, terrifying) location shots which provide some amazing depth of field. Colors are very robust and well saturated, and even when the film tends to drown in slate grays and whites as the weather turns foul in the late going, detail is never seriously compromised. There are no real stability issues here, either, even in the "busy" scenes with lots of snowfall or mist filling the frame. A couple of the green screened mattes looked just slightly artificial to my eyes, but otherwise this is a splendid presentation that has a lot of "wow" factor.
North Face's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is filled to the brim with immersive effects, though they tend to more fully exploit the side channels than the rear most of the time. Things start out relatively calmly, with little effects like a dog barking in what sounds like a far off left region of the soundfield, but as the film gets more and more into the climbing sequences, things perk up dramatically, with lots of well done moments that include everything from whipping winds and other foul weather to the distinctive "clink" of pitons being hammered into sheer rock faces. Dialogue and score are both presented very cleanly, always with excellent fidelity and with some appealing dynamic range.
As it stands, North Face is certainly one of the finest films made about mountain climbing that I personally can remember. But why didn't the filmmakers just stick to facts, rather than trying to introduce extraneous elements that not only don't add that much, they actually distract from the most interesting part of the film? The good news here is that the main story is so compelling that even the rather rote romantic aspect and the somewhat more salient political angle can't derail the film's momentum in any major way. Featuring breathtaking shots of some astounding cliffside moves and with a rather ominous sense of tragedy building moment by moment once the climb begins, North Face may well result in more than merely sweaty palms. It's a really unique, terrifying but weirdly uplifting film that comes Highly recommended.
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