90° South

1st watched 11/7/2001 - 8 out of 10 (Dir-Herbert G. Ponting): Documentary with amazing footage of the final Antartic expedition of the Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his crew starting with 60 people. This film has adventure, amazing cinematography, wonderfully witty animal footage of penguins and seals in the area and shows the great courage of the people trying to do something that seemed almost humanely impossible. It's amazing that so much footage was accomplished and so much has now been captured for generations about this perilous journey. Bravo to the English National film archive for restoring this film and now it could even be found on DVD for even more generations.

Considering the conditions which Herbert Ponting carried out all his photography work in the Antarctic and that all his plates had to be transported home, this film is worthy of the highest accolades for the fact that it exists at all.

The film is about Scott's actual journey, which in a way is a shame because Ponting, although not in the party who ventured South, took infinitely more film and photographs than were shown.

The documentary failed to mention that the party who set out to store replies for the return journey ("One Ton Base") created the store 11 miles short of the the planned location due to bad weather. Scott's return party perished 11 miles short of the the store.

The original film of Captain R F Scott's expedition to Antarctica and the South Pole in 1910 and 1911, with commentary and music added for the new release in 1933. The first half of the film describes the voyage there in the "Terra Nova", the establishment of the camp, the living conditions, the work of the scientists and the first winter. The second summer and Scott's awful expedition to the Pole with a man-hauled sledge and a diet that must itself have meant death. After the disappointment of finding that Amundsen had reached the Pole some weeks before, the terrible return journey in appalling conditions, the five men frozen, snow-blinded, diseased and exhausted. Petty Officer Evans's death and Captain Oates's walk into the blizzard to die for his comrades, and the death of the last three, just eleven miles from a depot of stores.

The journey to the Pole was recorded by Scott with his own still camera, otherwise the movie camera recorded only a rehearsal and the first stage, but the extensive description of life on the frozen sea is more than impressive. The long scenes of Antarctic scenery, the strange and beautiful landscape of ice and rock, linger in the memory, their images clear and silvery, their shapes and textures mysterious. This film impresses with its subject and its immediacy, and for the conditions in which it was produced. Yet it deserves the highest praise for the quality of its cinematography, its ability to convey the harshness of reality in a landscape that had also the quality of a dream. The introduction and commentary, notwithstanding their stilted manner and outmoded patriotism, yet have a sincerity that only those who were there, were part of that experience, affected by it for ever, can have. And that impresses, too.

I can imagine that this film would have been quite remarkable in 1933 when the first incarnation appeared. It still serves as a fantastic tale of humanities quest for the unknown and his perseverance in the face of the worst conditions that the earth can produce. Yet, as a viewer of the film in the 21st century, I found the film to be somewhat dull. The development of the characters, even the stalwart Captain, are not very well explained. The amount of drive and obsession that the people that would be willing to take such a journey is simply explained away as British Nationalism,and to a calloused modern viewer such as myself, this simply was not sufficient explanation. Yet, as a historical document, this film is well worth the hour and ten minutes of viewing time, and some of the early footage of the Antartic is truly amazing.

This compelling footage from the Antarctic explorations of the British in 1911 is a must see if: You are a fan of early documentaries. Period. Just watch it, you won't be disappointed.

You love penguins... the footage of the Adelie penguins had me rolling on the floor. There are scenes when the dauntless explorers try to 'herd' the penguins, with absolutely hilarious results.

You love beauty ... when the documentarian describes and shows the beauty and starkness of the ice mountains, Mt. Erebus, and icebergs, you really see it, and the footage is, even in black and white, simply gorgeous.

You like Irish step dancing or Russian folk dancing. There's about 2 minutes of footage that will amaze you. (The crew entertaining themselves on the voyage). I have a horrible urge to grab that footage and put it on youtube with a really inappropriate soundtrack. Like rap, or C&W or Bollywood.

You are a fan of polar or any kind of extreme exploration.

You wish to get some notion of just how hard the British had it on the return trek from the pole. Classic, and tragic, until you realize that if Scott hadn't been such a self-righteous wackdoodle they might have all survived.

You like seals. The mommy and baby seal footage is really cute, and shows something of seal behavior which I hadn't known before.

You just love jingoistic nonsense about how great the Brits are. Hate to break it to ya folks, but Amundsen got there first! Anyway, I watched this while halfway through "The Last Place on Earth", the 1985 BBC mini-series, and it really added to my understanding of the expedition.

Parts of this documentary are extremely offensive to modern tastes. The expedition cat was black, and so gets named the N word. Try to take it in context; in a hundred years a lot of the crap we do currently is going to look mighty strange - and offensive - to our descendants.