90° South

2026

Documentary

IMDb Rating 7.4/10 10 211 211

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by 8 / 10

"What Fun It Will Be When We Are Home Again and See This in the Cinema..."

Although now superceded as the 'definitive' version of Herbert Ponting's silent record of the Scott expedition by the restoration of his original 'The Great White Silence' of 1924, this sound reissue works well on its own terms as a straight runthrough of that famous calamity; especially as it is personally narrated on the soundtrack by Ponting himself, who actually appears at the start rather stiffly addressing us in evening dress (confirming that Clive Morton managed a reasonable likeness of him in 'Scott of the Antarctic' fifteen years later).
Reviewed by 8 / 10

A fitting adjunct to "The Last Place on Earth" the BBC mini-series

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.
Reviewed by 8 / 10

Documentary with amazing footage...

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.
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