South

Until this showed up on TCM's recent documentary series I had no idea that this film existed. It is a truly remarkable document of Shackleton's expedition to the South Pole in 1914 that turned into a two year adventure on ice.

Save for some cute animal footage at the end that seems designed to pad the running time, this is a perfect film.

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 is a documentary of the Shackleton Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914. Shackleton's ship was trapped in pack ice and later destroyed, leading to a two-year struggle for survival on the frozen seas. The film is a mixture of live-action movies and still photos from the expedition. It is as much a nature documentary as a record of the voyage, with the latter portion especially paying more attention to the Antarctic wildlife than the struggles of the explorers. It is also incomplete, skipping some important parts of the story, like the fate of the expedition's dogs. Those who want to learn about the voyage might be better served reading Alfred Lansing's "Endurance", or Shackleton's memoir, both of which are still in print. Still, "South" is an interesting video record of the early days of polar exploration.

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.