Film
Der Kampf ums Matterhorn
- Director
- Mario Bonnard, Nunzio Malasomma
- Certificate
- PG
- Running Time
- 117 mins
An enthralling, fact-based Alpine thriller from 1928, Der Kampf ums Matterhorn (Struggle for the Matterhorn) was one of the best in the cycle of mountaineering adventures that proved so popular with audiences in the 1920s and 1930s. It’s based on the battle between stiff-upper-lipped English climber Edward Whymper and moody Italian Jean-Antoine Carrel (played here by Tyrolean athlete Luis Trenker) to become the first to reach the summit of the last unconquered Alpine peak. It’s still remarkably suspenseful after all these years, with terrific cinematography that’s even more impressive given the knowledge that no CGI trickery was involved.
This screening of a digitally restored print includes live piano accompaniment by Stephen Horne and is part of the Watershed’s October Weimar Sundays brunch season, marking 100 years since the establishment of the Weimar Republic – the period of economic and political turmoil between WWI and WWII, which also gave rise to a key film movement in the history of cinema. This, in turn, forms part of an epic collaboration between South West Silents, Bristol Festival of Ideas, Cube Cinema, Curzon Cinema and the Watershed celebrating the films of the Weimar Republic as well as the ‘City and Silent Film’. These two seasons run through September, October and November 2019 as part of the Festival of the Future City 2019.
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