Joe Simpson, who survived a near-fatal fall in the Andes as told in Touching the Void, turns his attention to the Eiger's North Face and the 1936 attempt that killed Toni Kurz. Kurz died within reach of rescuers, dangling on a rope that jammed with a knot he could not pass, close enough to hear German rescuers but unable to be saved. Simpson uses Kurz's story to examine his own compulsion to keep climbing after his injuries, interviewing fellow mountaineers about why people return to a mountain that has already killed friends. Dramatized reenactments of the 1936 climb are cut together with present-day footage of Simpson on the Eiger itself, plus archival photographs of Kurz and his party. The film moves between the historical tragedy and Simpson's own reckoning with fear, memory, and the pull of dangerous terrain, asking what keeps drawing climbers back to faces that have already proven they can kill.