Review of Five Days One Summer

The main reason to see this movie is the scenery and mountain climbing sequences. The movie did indeed do a very good job of showing how treacherous and demanding mountain climbing is. I was also glad to hear that there were not stunt actors filling in. The actors had to do their own work. The photo quality is so good that you think that it could have been filmed yesterday, not 25 years ago. The main drawback to the movie is that it is very confusing. The movie starts out with an odd couple, an older man and a very young woman, showing up at a Swiss mountain resort. The movie goes backwards throughout the plot letting you know how their relation came about. Unfortunately, by doing so, the viewer is left with too many questions. Worse still, I didn't completely understand the story of their relationship. In the synopsis on the film cover jacket, it says that the woman was his niece. One good thing was the tension between Connery's character and the young Swiss mountain climber. When the tragic accident occurred, the love-triangle would have made it look like this was no accident, but homicide. It was never clear whether there was adultery or just flirtation going on. Connery never revealed completely how his relationship with the young woman developed. You were also not be completely sure how much the couple loved each other. That ambiguity did work well.