CLIMBERS' ORDEAL MAKES A RIVETING MOVIE TALE.(LIFE-SCENE)

Byline: ROGER EBERT Universal Press Syndicate

For someone who fervently believes he will never climb a mountain, I spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking about mountain climbing. In my dreams my rope has come loose and I am falling, falling, and all the way down I am screaming: ``Stupid! You're so stupid! You climbed all the way up there just so you could fall back down!''

Now there is a movie more frightening than my nightmares. ``Touching the Void'' is the most harrowing movie about mountain climbing I have seen, or can imagine. I didn't take a single note during this film. I simply sat there before the screen, enthralled, fascinated and terrified.

Not for me the discussions about the utility of the ``pseudo-documentary format,'' or questions about how the camera happened to be waiting at the bottom of the crevice when Simpson fell in. ``Touching the Void'' was, for me, more of a …