I watched another Kevin Macdonald production last week (The Last King of Scotland), and in the making-of featurette of that movie Macdonald was interviewed in front of a poster for Touching the Void, which I had heard of but hadn't seen. So I decided to give it a go, even though I didn't particularly like Macdonald's direction on The Last King of Scotland.
Man, what an amazing story. Macdonald did exactly the right thing: let the principles tell their own story, and get the fuck out of the way. While just hearing Joe Simpson tell his story to a black screen would have been just as captivating, the reenactments were useful in visually demonstrating the story without distracting from the most amazing part of the documentary: the talking heads.
