Wow, this film started out in a way that you thought would be very cheery and ended with serious dramatic baggage as it’s revealed that everyone on the expedition died. The film is unique for it’s almost biased perspective. The intertitles and sequencing of events is very much told through the first person voice of the filmmaker who travelled to the region, and has a very Pro-British, Pro-empire viewpoint on these actions that you can see being part of the propaganda wave that led to WW1 and the massive amounts of death that were being forced upon the peasants and laymen of Europe in the name of the “greatness and honor of the countries” fighting the war. This film very much feels part of the Glory of the British Empire at its height, before WW1 knocked the aristocratic and imperial world order on its ass.
The shots are amazing for what they are. And it’s interesting to note how any journey to Antarctica inevitably yields a “March of the Penguin” film where a sizeable chunk of this movie feels like the proto-type to March. The way in which the filmmaker addresses his own bias and presence in the actions that he’s “documenting” also reflect this greater than thou British Empire viewpoint as he kind of writes off the fact that he is hurting the authenticity of the scene by assuming his place in the moment.
The filmmaker clearly disrupts the penguins habitat without any regard for the fact that he’s doing so and the way he approaches it is almost imperial in the sense of “What? I’m British, of course I can disrupt this habitat and ecosystem for my own sense of mastering it and aggrandizement, in fact I’m supposed to because that’s the role of the British empire.” And you can see this attitude extended in the shock ending where the deaths of the explorers are chalked up to victories for the honor of the country, not avoidable casualties that should be learned from.
In fact the deaths are held up as examples to schoolchildren of the fact that your life is disposable and supposed to be entirely in service of the crown. Again, this is an idea that brought about WW1 and the massive casualties of that way and the subsequent shock and breakdown of this mindset due to the war.
The shots themselves are incredible. The filmmaker has some extreme wide angle shots from very high up that I can’t even begin to fathom where he took them from. He must have climbed a mountain to get these amazing time lapse shots of the sled taking off.