Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Nordwand" is a German 2-hour film from 7 years ago. It takes place during the early years of the Nazi reign and basically shows us how a group of mountain climbers try to master a truly touch challenge. The (co-)writer and director here is Philipp Stölzl and I have seen some of his works. I liked "Goethe!" and I loved "The Physician", so I had some hopes for "Nordwand" as well. Unfortunately, they were not fulfilled. I am generally not the biggest fan of Benno Fürmann, but he was okay here. the acting is good in general and there are more famous names in here, such as Florian Lukas, Ulrich Tukur, Georg Friedrich, Martin Brambach (personal favorite) and, of course, Johanna Wokalek, who sort of plays the only significant female character in the film and also gives the best performance I guess. Quite a pity that, in recent years, she hardly acted in films.Anyway, the reason why I did not really enjoy this film was that adventure movies are not exactly my cup of tea. I liked the film for the historic references in the first half and it would have been great if this could have been a political movie and not entirely focused on the expedition. The more history, the better for me. The less climbing scenes, the better as well. Unfortunately, pretty much the entire second half/hour takes place in the Alps. The film is sometimes fairly graphic in terms of injuries and drama, especially towards the ending. People who like this kind of films more than I do and also enjoyed the recent Hollywood film "Everest" can check this out, but everybody else is not really missing much. Not recommended.

jvdesuit1 Why do the script writers and movie directors have such little respect for history? This is something I'll never understand.In the North face we are again confronted to such an inexcusable behavior. What should we do then? Condemn the whole movie and suppress it from the list or be indulgent about it?In the case of this movie at least we have a choice between two versions of the tragedy which is told. We can watch the Joe Simpson's movie adapted from his book the Beckoning Silence and then have the real facts staged before us with very interesting comments by the great climber who faced that terrible mountain.On the other hand North face in spite of its flaws remains a great movie because of the fantastic actors and the intense atmosphere of the scenario. From this point of view it is much more dramatic than Simpson's movie. Perhaps the flaw which is the worst of all is at the beginning of the movie which present Newsreels which are obviously edited to motivate the subsequent presentation of this historical event. From a German director and script writer this is unforgivable. Especially in the dramatic period Germany was facing you are not allowed to change facts of that kind even if you try to stress what was going on in the country with its huge and massive propaganda, lies and boldness .This is for me by far the greatest flaw in the movie. The rest is childish or assumptions of what was going on between the participants of the climb. We were not there and can't tell what they were saying to each others during the events, our guesses may be true or quite wrong. Does it really matter? Of course not, the tragedy was the same in the end.From a cinematic point of view the film is astounding even considering that we have today such possibilities to recreate such conditions.From an acting point of view again we have great actors doing a splendid performance in all respects. Benno Fürmann is absolutely moving all along the film. Ulrich Tukur in the part of the German journalist is giving an image of the typical Nazi thinking only of the glory of his country whatever the costs in lives. You hate him from the beginning without restrictions. His performance is also interesting because it is the full opposite to the part he played in Costa Gavras's Amen 6 years earlier.Johanna Wokalek and Florian Lukas are also great showing both respectively the fragility of a woman too naive to understand how her boss exploits her for his only ambition and the guy too ambitious to realize the incredible carelessness of his decisions.In conclusion both movies are a must see without restrictions at all.

keachs This is a beautifully shot film, and captures the feel of 1930's Germany. The actors are very believable and the climbing scenes and scenery, stunning. I wondered how they filmed the climbing scenes so realistically, and found out in the extras that although they employed special effects and CGI images, they are so realistic and well integrated that you absolutely cannot tell where they used the effects. The storyline is gripping, made even more so knowing that the movie was based on actual events. The actual account on Wikipedia is even more heartbreaking. Easily one of the best mountaineering movies out there, along with "Touching the Void".

greenfant Just watched the movie last night. Being German, one thing that bothered me was that neither the Toni Kurz, Andreas Hinterstoisser nor Luise Fellner character spoke with a Bavarian dialect. Wouldn't you expect that from somebody born and raised in Berchtesgaden? I do have to agree with an earlier comment: The Austrian team did not come across as a real competition to the German team. In fact, they were portrayed as being quite a miserable pair, technically and spiritually inferior to the German team.Otherwise I enjoyed the movie. Acting was solid and the story believable.