That is where disaster horrifically struck, Simpson falling a short distance and breaking several bones in his leg. With no hope of rescue, Yates bravely tried to slide his compatriot off the mountain, lowering him down the face of Siula Grande 300 feet at a time. Stuck in a white out and with his partner too far out in front of him to know what was going on, Yates found himself being slowly pulled off the mountain by the suddenly motionless Simpson. Faced with an inhuman choice, the climber had to either break the cardinal rule of climbing and cut the tether between himself and his partner or leave the rope alone and be dragged to certain death.

Needless to say, Yates cut the rope and made the long trek back to base camp alone wrestling with the demons ushered on by his choice. But, unbeknownst to the crestfallen mountaineer, Joe survived his fall, landing in a crevasse as big as the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Resting on a tiny ledge, it soon becomes clear to Simpson that the only way he’s going to survive this adventure is if he does it alone. Refusing to give into frostbite or extreme dehydration, the climber wills himself – crawling one painful inch at a time most of the way – down the mountain.

The new film from Academy Award-winning documentarian Kevin Macdonald (“One Day in September”) “Touching the Void” is a blisteringly intense examination of Simpson and Yates story. Based on Joe’s award-winning book of the same name, Macdonald fuses present-day interviews of the climbers with surreal reenactments of the events to craft a documentary unlike almost any other I’ve ever seen. It is a beautifully rendered document, a testament to human perseverance and the strength of character that resides in some individuals when faced with the specter of certain death.

It is actually a little amazing just how quickly this movie puts Hollywood adventures like “Cliffhanger” and “Vertical Limit” to shame. This is an in-your-face documentary, Macdonald and cinematographer Mike Eley getting so close to the viscerally imperious mountain that I could almost feel the frost on my face and my throat parched with thirst. The reenactments are so good, so imbued with a profound intimacy, that I couldn’t stop my palms from sweating almost from the very first moment Simpson and Yates start the ascent up Siula Grande. Their cockiness as they weather their first night on the mountain was catching, as was the extreme exuberance of success upon their reaching the summit.

But it is Simpson, faced with the titular void, which takes the breath away. The sight of the wounded climber hung limp over the side of the mountain, the misty blackness beneath calling out for his blood, is the type of moment that burns the screen with intimate power. Macdonald holds the scene with a wretched beauty then suddenly the floor drops away and Joe falls into the all-consuming blackness. It is a stunning, lump-in-your-throat event, and Macdonald and company stage it brilliantly.

Granted, the mystery of whether or not he and Yates will survive is taken away the moment each of their faces show up in close-up to talk about their days on the mountain. These interviews, while utterly fascinating, due have the unfortunate effect of diluting some of the film’s powerful spell. This is especially so when the best the duo can come up with to explain why they climbed is to state, “we climb because it was fun,” not exactly the most profound words ever uttered in a documentary.

Also, Macdonald does tend to over-direct. There is a moment late where the director tries every trick in the book to dramatize Simpson’s growing dehydrated hysteria. The problem is, all the jumpy camera moves and film pixilation doesn’t put the viewer in the climber’s place; it just gives them a headache.

I did like his use of a rather annoying British pop song (every time a song is stuck in my head I’ll think of this movie), though, and problems like those are few and far between. Both Simpson and Yates are extremely interesting, and the emotions these two feel almost two-decades later towards the event are palpable in many of their responses. No picture has ever quite grasped the immediacy and dangerous excitement of mountain climbing like this one.