To The Limit (Am Limit)
Austria/Germany, 2007, color, 100 minutes, German with English subtitles Director: Pepe Danquart Screenplay: Pepe Danquart Producers: Erich Lackner, Mirjam Quinte, Kirsten Hager With: Alexander Huber, Thomas Huber, Dean S. Potter, Chongo, Andy Perkins US Distributor: First Run Features
German-born director Pepe Danquart, one of Europe’s best-kept auteur secrets, specializes in sports documentaries in which athletes stretch the limits of physical endurance and social convention. For his newest film, Danquart profiles the complex sibling rivalry and unrivaled mountaineering accomplishments of Alexander and Thomas Huber; the former, cited by Reinhold Messner as “a master,” teams up with the latter, a specialist in Himalayan climbs, to attempt a speed record ascent up the notorious Nose of Yosemite Valley’s El Capitan peak. Yet the very drive that unites them—their father Thomas was a fast-ascent pioneer—also results in a dangerous friction. The third film in a trilogy on sport that began with the politically-charged Berlin ice hockey saga Home Game and continued with the probing Tour de France documentary Hell on Wheels, To the Limit again features spectacularly nimble cinematography and the tangible you-are-there feel that is a hallmark of Danquart’s visceral oeuvre.—Eddie Cockrell
Pepe Danquart (b. 1955, Singen) studied communications from 1975 to 1981. An Oscar winner for the acclaimed live-action short Black Rider, his extensive filmography in both documentary and fiction filmmaking includes Daedalus (1991), Playboys (1998), the German Film Award-winning Home Game (2000), Semana Santa (2002), Angel of Death and Hell on Wheels (2004) and C(r)ook (2004).
