Race to the Bottom of the Earth (***)

Nancy Glass, who directed this documentary along with Michele Loschiavo, says she almost laughed when Todd Carmichael told her he was an explorer. It sounded so out of the past. What’s left to explore? That strikes me as the fundamental difference between someone like Roald Amundsen, whose team first reached the South Pole in 1991, and Carmichael, who headed there alone in 2008. That is, while the early explorers were no doubt driven by the will to test themselves, there was also the drive to go where no one had before, to discover. For Carmichael, along with a Finnish man named Teemu, there is only the first thing. They are something closer to ultramarathoners. “We’re out of our heads,” Carmichael says to the camera. It is another gift of the modern age that he can film himself and make phone calls.

Other modern things, like outside assistance and motorized transport, he eschews. The goal was to travel unaided, alone—Teemu traveled separately—the 700 miles from the edge of Antarctica to the pole in record time, just under 40 days. That is, to average more than 17 miles per day on foot, dragging a sled with 250 pounds worth of food and equipment, in subzero weather, through ice and snow. I’d heard Carmichael being interviewed on radio some months ago, talking about frostbite, and eating thousands of calories of butter, and having his ski break the first day, but the video shows what it was like.

Glass and Loschiavo have done a good job editing 70 hours of footage into a nicely paced narrative, mostly Carmichael and Teemu talking to the camera, but also of Carmichael’s wife back in Philadelphia. Most of the footage is inside a tent, but Carmichael does film himself trudging forward. The only flaw might be the inability of film to truly capture the most amazing thing about the journey. That is, the camera readily makes one appreciate a world-class sprinter, a warrior in battle, or even a poker player. But the camera could not make me comprehend what would make someone endure frostbite-inducing cold, lack of sleep, and sore muscles, and yet maintain the will to push on (and pull on a heavy sled) hour after hour, day after day, just to say you did it.

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viewed 11/2/11 at Ritz East [Philadelphia Film Festival screening] and reviewed 11/2/11

Encounters at the End of the World (***)

Werner Herzog has made a career out of depicting man confronting the extreme. His recent work includes Grizzly Man, a documentary about a man killed by the creatures he sought to protect, and Rescue Dawn, the Christian Bale-starring POW drama. In Antarctica, those with a taste for the extreme congregate. Here, the only continent where Herzog had not made a movie, he finds scientists as well as those doing the more mundane work that supports them.

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viewed 7/16/08; reviewed 8/5/08

Happy Feet (***)

? It’s the November of the penguins in this computer-animated feature about a young emperor penguin who becomes something of an outcast because, unlike the rest of his colony, he can’t carry a tune. He can, however, tap dance, and finds some acceptance with some folks in a neighboring colony where everyone sounds Hispanic. George Miller (The Road Warrior) directed the Aussie-made movie, which features the voices of Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman and, doing his best Isaac Hayes impression, Robin Williams as a comical guru who also narrates the story.

+  Antarctica and the penguins are rendered with an almost photographic accuracy. (The penguins actually look pretty much alike, so size is mostly used to distinguish one from the other.) The musical numbers, even the medleys, are mostly well produced. Since they’re hits of the last 50 years, they’re guaranteed to push the buttons of anyone from 6 to 66. Amusingly, a major plot point involves whether “aliens” exist. A flying bird that almost eats the hero insists that he was the victim of an alien abduction that resulted in the tag he sports on his leg. For a story that appears headed for a familiar destination, the route is surprising. If this weren’t a family-oriented cartoon, I might even call the last segment existential. Like some kind of mini-Penguin of the Rings, it was definitely the most interesting segment for me, even if it might confuse the youngest viewers. The movie also carries a pro-conservation message.

- Perhaps reflecting the four credited writers, this is a somewhat disjointed movie. The first 2/3 has about 12 minutes of plot and a lot of visual and musical riffs that collectively made the movie seem a little long. (For an animated movie, it is.) At times the plight of the hero seems to be a metaphor for gay rights, at others a shot at cultural reactionaries. But then the last part of the movie is chock full of plot, and, as noted, possibly confusing for little kids. (A sequence where whales nearly have penguin tartare might frighten them too.) The fact that nearly all the penguins look alike might prevent the characters from leaving as indelible a mark as some other cartoon heroes.

= *** I’m not sure what kids will think of this. It’s warm and fuzzy in parts, not in others, but they’ll like the singing penguins. The ending is magical for all ages.

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Eight Below (***)

This Antarctic adventure about sled dogs and their bond with their owner is a family film that the adults can enjoy too.

When I saw it, I had no idea what this Disney movie was about except snow, and I was happily surprised. So I’m not going to say what eventually happens in the movie, except that there are a lot of scenes with sled dogs. Paul Walker is the loving owner of the dogs. He spends a lot of time in Antarctica escorting people around like the scientist (Bruce Greenwood) who hopes to find a meteor near the American base. Danger ensues for both humans and dogs. This is a remake of a 1983 Japanese film called Antarctica that was based on events in 1958. It was directed by Frank Marshall, who directed the equally snowbound Alive. So even though this is a family movie, some realism is retained. The dogs don’t talk or do things that real dogs don’t do. They’re even shown killing for food. Disney made another movie about snow dogs a few years ago. It was called Snow Dogs. Maybe the racing story in that movie was easier to follow for kids, but the ones in the theater when I saw Eight Below seemed interested anyway, and I think anyone over about ten years old will like this a lot better.

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