Review: With 'Torn,' a climbing legend's son explores how his dad's death changed the family

For those familiar with mountain climbing, the story of Alex Lowe and Conrad Anker falls somewhere between legend and soap opera — and Lowe’s oldest son, Max Lowe, does a lot to look behind those facile judgments in his documentary “Torn,” digging deep into his dad’s archives and his family’s still-raw emotional issues.

Lowe was considered one of the best and most enthusiastic climbers in the world. He climbed everything — rocks, glaciers, mountains, anything that went up more than it went down. He was also a rarity in the sport because he was a family man, as he and his wife Jenni raised three boys — Max, Sam and Isaac — in their home in Bozeman, Mont.

It all ended on October 5, 1999, on a mountain in the Tibetan Himalayas called Shishapangma, which Lowe and Anker were climbing so they could ski down the side. Lowe, Anker and cameraman David Bridges got caught in an avalanche — Anker survived, Lowe and Bridges did not.

As Max Lowe, who was 10 at the time, tells it in his film, what happened next was Anker visited the Lowe family in Bozeman, and vowed to Jenni that he would do everything he could to look out for Lowe’s sons. He moved into the Lowes’ house, took the family to Disneyland (something Alex always wanted to do for his kids), and became part of the household. Just over a year after Lowe’s death, Jenni and Anker got married.

Max Lowe’s film examines how the family coped with Alex’s death, then and now. In some of the early interviews, Isaac asks his big brother why he wants to make this movie, and possibly reopen old wounds. What the film reveals — through archival footage, Jenni reading Alex’s letters, and interviews with his mom, his brothers and Anker — is that some wounds never heal until they are opened up and examined.

“Torn” becomes, in the end, less a movie about mountain climbing and more about the seemingly insurmountable obstacles that trauma and grief placed in this family’s path, and what it took to get around them.

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‘Torn’

★★★

Opens Friday, January 7, at Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Not rated, but probably PG-13 for language and mature themes. Running time: 92 minutes.

Director Max Lowe will appear in person for a live Q&A after the 7:10 p.m. screening on Friday, January 7, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas.