MartinHafer
You really have to admire the filmmakers and their willingness to put themselves way, way out to get a movie made. After all, most nature documentaries require a few weeks or perhaps a few months of filmmaking...yet these folks were there for a year. And, most importantly, they were in Antarctica for a year...and as I said, you really need to admire these folks.The film is set at the US (McMurdo) and New Zealand (Scott) research stations and I was surprised to hear that there were up to 5000 people in the many research stations during the summer months. This portion of the film was interesting, as it held seals and penguins and life seemed not entirely awful. However the hellish and LONG winter was actually much more interesting--with the storms and things the folks did to avoid becoming like Jack Nicholson in "The Shining"!Overall, this film has some of the most incredible cinematography in any film I've seen and it's never boring. I also wonder if it was originally made for the IMAX or OMNIMAX theaters...it really would look insanely good on such screens.
UmpahpahBg
A documentary made through the lenses of Anthony Powell, photographer who spent many years in Antarctica lead you to the incredible journey to the world we really don't know much. The author describe just a portion of this amazing place over one year of time, combining short interviews, wonderful time lapse photography and just a glimpses of ordinary life of the small population that works on Antarctica. The movie opened many fascinating phenomena, from the mighty storms and winds, cold, 4 months in constant daylight and than darkness and the ways people adapts to those conditions, (T3 Syndrome, for example) which can really be a separate topics for more than one documentary.Although the movie is not perfect, by my opinion, as it lack some inside to the geography of the place and at least some facts about the conditions there, it basically opened many more questions form me. This movie and its amazing topic with conditions where it was filmed basically don't give you the space to moan about imperfection that surely exists. Instead, it make you wondering about all what is seen, with a feeling that you would like to see much more.
A_Different_Drummer
As it sits, right out of the box, this is a treat.Documentaries are best when they project the passion of their creator and here we have a gentleman with infinite experience of living on the continent, a gentleman who even took the time and trouble to make his own camera equipment (that would work in the cold) and set out to capture the "experience" for those will never get it first hand.Which is most of us.Making heavy use of voice over (as opposed to head and shoulders interviews) this is a fun ride.I can tell what would have made it perfect.Since this is fundamentally a story about cold (people yes,landscape yes, but cold mainly) I would have loved to see a digital readout over every shot showing current temperature.For example, when "summer" ends and the last plane is leaving, I saw people without outerware, dressed casual standing outside. I kept thinking, what was the temperature? In the next shot sequence a winter storm has set in which looks like it could freeze thoughts. What was the temperature then? Just a thought. Good movie. Recommended.
Siebert_Tenseven
This is an absolutely incredible visual and auditory experience. The scenery is close to what one would have seen in the Lord of The Rings films, and the music seems like it's from Lord of The Rings as well. It's almost as though the globe shifted and New Zealand overlapped with Antarctica, complete with similar production companies.For some reason, the narrative is very difficult to follow. For about fifteen seconds someone is being interviewed, and then another person is being interviewed for about five seconds. Then there are some time lapse penguins and some time lapse views of mountains with heroic music. It's almost like watching a large number of commercials end to end.After a while the fascination wears off. In some ways I started to feel like I was trapped in a camera that refused to function correctly. I never really got a chance to find out about anyone or their experience in depth. There isn't really any sense of character development. Plenty of descriptions of things but not too much much reflection of how it feels.If you're looking for something to watch that is visually stunning, this is probably as good as it gets. If you're interested in finding out what it's like to spend a year in Antarctica there are some excellent written accounts from explorers in the past that describe a lot more of what it was really like, minus the comfort of email.
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