South

Using some originally shot footage from the expedition that started just as Europe went to war in 1914, this tells a fascinating story of human endeavour in the face of just about everything hostile that nature has in it's armoury. We see elements of their preparation, their voyage and of the treacherousness of their new environment as their ship struggles to make headway through the ever thickening ice - before ultimately ending up as glorified kindling! Unfortunately, though not unsurprisingly, there are no images as the majority of the crew are left on Elephant Island whilst Sir Ernest Shackleton and his small crew embark on an 800 mile journey to "neighbouring" South Georgia in an open boat to try and summon help from the whaling station there. The photography is great - we see many creatures from the Antarctic for the first time; have some fun with the penguins and the seals - and the weather, the adverse weather conditions just have you reaching for a duvet at each turn. This is a great story of endurance that demonstrates just what could be done with grit and determination, and without the aid of modern technology - and if you can see it on a bigger screen, then the whole scale of their adventure through this perilous terrain makes this quite a compelling watch.

This is a slice of history. The documentation of the expedition that didn't work out and turned into a adventurous flight for survival. Unfortunately, and of course naturally, the real story, the trek to Elephant Isle and then to South Georgia, the pinnacle of the whole event, was not on film. But again, this is were film becomes a 'time-machine'.

Little did cinematographer/photographer Frank Hurley know when he left Plymouth, England with Sir Ernest Shackleton's Trans-Antarctic Expedition in August 1914 he was recording one of history's most epic feat of endurance. For two years, the goal of crossing the South Pole turned into a nightmare as the expedition's ship, the "Endurance," became solidly stuck in the ice for over a year before buckling under pressure. Hurley had to surrender his camera, but he did save a few reels of his footage as well as 100 photographic plates.

After a miraculous return in August 1916, Hurley used the film he cranked out and the still photographs he shot while on the Endurance to produce his 1919 documentary "South." This was Hurley's second voyage to Antartica, so he knew about film preservation in frigid weather. But nothing quite prepared him for the hardships facing the expedition when the Endurance became ice jammed. What's notable in the Hurley footage is how the crew, foot by foot, attempted to get their ship to the mainland by physically hand sawing the ice in front.

The highlight of "South" was Hurley's footage of the crew unloading all the necessary hardware from the Endurance and capturing the ship's destruction. Hurley returned to the destroyed ship and waded in waist high water to retrieve the photographic plates. "I hacked through the thick walls of the refrigerator to retrieve the negatives stored therein," he wrote a week later. "They were located beneath four feet of mushy ice and by stripping to the waist and diving under I hauled them out."

Unfortunately, he had to give up his camera, not able to film his crew mates when they scampered onto the three lifeboats as the packed ice broke up. They ended up on the uninhabited Elephant Island, where Shackleton and five others, in an open boat, made an 800-mile journey to South Georgia Island, where eventually they rescued the 22 waiting members. This became the last major expedition of the so-called Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Director George Butler used Frank Hurley's footage and photos to reconstruct his 2001 IMAX movie "Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure." Butler's film crew shot on location at the South Pole where the Shackleton crew journeyed to complement Hurley's work that will forever live in documentary history.

A truly amazing film, and at least one good thing to come as a result of British self-importance. Film was still in its early years; leave it to the Brits to capitalize on it to record their abortive undertaking at the south pole. Still it is an admirable effort, and the photography is often startling, especially since the Milestone release. Thanks to the previous commentor for the bibliography, as I too had to wonder what became of the sled dogs, who seemed at least as dedicated as their human counterparts.

This film has recently been shown with the title "SOUTH Sir Ernest Shackleton's glorious epic of the Antarctic". Considering what cinematographer Frank Hurley had to work with as equipment and the hardships under which he was working, it really is an amazing film. Think, too, that probably most of his footage and still photographs had to be abandoned as the 28 men fought just to stay alive after their ship "Endurance" was crushed by the ice and sank. Shackleton hoped to land on the coast of Antarctica and cross the continent using dog sleds, then be picked up on the other coast by his ship. Alas, the winter of 1914-1915 turned out to be one of worst in the known history of the frozen continent to that time, and their ship was ice bound and destroyed before they ever reached the shore south of Elephant Island and the farther north island of South Georgia. What we are shown here is mostly the earlier part of the saga before the conditions grew really bad. The latter part is covered mostly by still pics and some artists drawings, pieced out by movies of bird and seal life around South Georgia. This last may prove tedious for some, but the rest is very interesting. For a really detailed account of Shackleton's adventure consult ENDURANCE: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing (McGraw-Hill, 1959) which I imagine many libraries will have.