UKC

Stumbled onto this film while browsing in iPlayer and noticed that the plot synopsis mentions a group of 'mountaineers' in the Scottish Highlands.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000rs2n/a-lonely-place-to-die

The film, it turns out is a grisly thriller with a very high body count (cert15), however the opening sequence involves a climbing 'incident' somewhere in Glen Coe by the look of it.

It was analysed a while back on UKC when it came out in this thread...

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/a_lonely_place_to_die-474050

but ust for my own entertainment I thought I would break it down again (tongue firmly in cheek)...

...so stop reading if you don't want any spoilers (just for the climbing bit of course)

Here we go...

• 30secs in and we get a close up of a cam (4CU or Metolius?) being placed. Nice.
• Close up of the lead climber's approach shoes. Interesting choice.
• Some great airy shots of climbing from a drone/helicopter.
• Now we see the other two climbers. One is belaying..with a LOT of slack!
• The lead climber is now building a belay - two nut placements. Nice.
• He's clove-hitching in. Excellent.
• Lead climber shouts 'safe' and the belayers shouts 'off belay'. All good so far!
• Ominous shot of coils of rope round one climbers feet.
• Lead climber starts pulling up the rope and the other two get distracted by trying to take pictures of an eagle.
• (more ominous music as we see the pile of rope again)
• More beautiful scenery
• Lead climber thinks he has all the slack so clips in his belay device... Oh dear.
• Lead climber suddenly gets more slack, so  yanks the rope and pulls one climber off the belay ledge who then pulls the other one with them. They both fall a few metres below the Belay ledge but the lead climber arrests the fall on his belay device. OK, not quite getting this now.
• Chaos ensues. Lead climber somehow has a lot of spare rope with a loose end at his end and throws it back down the pitch.
• Wow! 3 seconds later the lead climber has already escaped the system and is already abseiling down the mysteriously spare rope to the others. That was fast! (No time for a prussik third hand of course)
• Yikes! he's going REALLY fast on that abseil..and no gloves? That's got to hurt...never mind that he could dislodge some rocks and kill them anyway.
• (BTW that's a L O N G pitch, given how much abseiling we are featuring.
• Lead climber arrives at the stance...and LETS GO WITH BOTH HANDS!! NOOOOO! Apparently this doesn't matter.
• They all get sorted and we get a good shot of the leader tied in with a figure-of-eight...with no stopper knot. You're just trolling us now, aren't you?

Have a look if you have some time to kill...and who doesn't right now?

Cheers

Dave

I hope they show 'The Descent' on the telly again soon.  You're going to lose your mind!

Find what ice axes are really made for....

It's a bit Vertical Limit when it comes to the climbing stuff, but I actually quite liked it as a film.

I actually met the director of this film on Crib Goch while he was out on recee to find a good filming location. Even though he ultimately used Scotland he did seem really keen to try and make as accurate a depiction of rock climbing as possible, and compared ro some films out there has done a pretty good job. 

To be fair, if the opening to the climbing scene involved 15 mins of faffing with ropes there wouldn't be much time for running through the woods getting shot by Sean 'mumbling' Harris, and the non-climbing audience would be wanting their money back.

Idly pondering this last night.

Is there a thread on UKDVLC complaining about the bit where the Serbian gangster hands over the keys to the Audi and says "Keep the car" without completing and handing over the V5C/2 to the new keeper?

UKGunNuts complaining about the failure to apply basic marksmanship principles by the kidnappers which would have ended the film in a couple of minutes, or the unrealistic way the bloke keeps heroically running after been hit multiple times in the chest with .308 Hornady Magnum 'Stagshredder' expanding ammunition?

Gun nuts complaining about inaccuracies in films? Yes, this is definitely a thing and UKC is far from unique when it comes to indulging in pedantry about our hobby appearing on film.

A thread on UKVolvo Owners might point out that it was an XC90 and not an Audi......

Finally got around to watching this on iPlayer today and enjoyed it. Not fussed about the liberties with the climbing/shooting/plot. I love Shakespeare and I love opera, so I'm not a great one for realism. But what was that very dramatic goths-on-fire Wicker Man type festival at the end? Was it just a fantastical elaboration of the Up Helly Aa or is there something similar in the Highlands (presumably with fewer bared breasts)? 

https://beltane.org/about-beltane/

Excellent. Thanks.

Reasonably entertaining but excellent for a game of "name the location".

Happy to help 😃 it’s rare that I get a chance to do so, on here 😜

the physical geography of streams, brooks and becks was quite interesting too.