Claude Andrieux

Les compagnons du vide is a documentary about alpinism that takes place in Mont Blanc Massif and La Meije. It was directed by Claude Andrieux in 1989 and produced by Echo. It features Lionel Wibault, Patrick Berhault, Roger Canac, Denis Ducroz, Jean-Franck Charlet, Sylviane Tavernier and others.

To understand the difficulties of an ascent to over eight thousand metres, it is enough to remember the almost 300 victims these peaks have claimed. The Swiss alpinist Ehrart Loretan, the third alpinist in the world to have climbed all 14 8,000, and the Austrian alpinist Kurt Diemgerger cover the whole history of the conquest of the world’s 8,000, from the fifties to the present day, together with other alpinists and film directors who have climbed them. They talk about their experienced when they ventured into the death zone.

A climber descends an Himalaya peak. He is alone and exhausted. His friend and cimbing companion, Smith, has just died. His ice-axe broke, a Bourgenew ice-axe. The climber tries to reach the rest of the expedition to announce the whole world that his friend died through the fault of the Bourgenew firm. The firm will go bankrupt and Smith will be reveanged! At least this is what he imagines. But the descent is so long... and when one is alone and tired, the night is long and you have to fight against eternal sleep. Death at high altitude often comes suddenly and is like a strange comedy.