Reviewing the Documentary Endurance: A Frosty Voyage Through Time
Ah, Endurance, a documentary that elegantly blends two of mankind’s favorite pastimes: getting stuck in the cold and staring into the abyss of our own mortality. Co-directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, and Natalie Hewit, this film reminds us that 100 years apart, some things never change—primarily, our stubbornness. You know, it’s almost as if the only thing more frozen than the Antarctic is our collective mental health, as we continue to send brave souls into the wild instead of simply sitting down for a chat with a therapist. Remember folks, it’s either “sitting on a couch” or “sitting on ice,” but for some, one is just too easy.
This cinematic experience just so happens to coincide with the mysterious expedition of Ernest Shackleton—a name that resonates through history like a warning bell for any sensible person thinking of crossing the Antarctic. Imagine planning a trip where the weather forecast basically reads: “Do you want a bit of frostbite with that?” But here we are, with Shackleton’s disastrous 1914 expedition sitting in one corner of the ice and a 2022 crew rummaging through its frozen memories like they’re on a treasure hunt, the prize being some old bits of splintered wood. I mean, when did we stop taking “finders keepers” seriously enough?
Endurance takes us on a journey that weaves between Shackleton’s infamous failure and the modern attempts to dig up his ship’s remains like it was last week’s leftover pizza. You can practically hear someone yelling, “Let’s see what we can salvage from this hot mess!” as the audience is treated to a plethora of ships, ice, and the occasional existential crisis. The documentary captures the thrill of adventure like a cat plays with a ball of yarn—entertaining, but you can’t help but wonder if there’s some deeply rooted psychological issue at play.
Now, I can’t help but think of the parallel between Shackleton handing over his film crew to Frank Hurley and today’s social media influencers saying, “Pics or it didn’t happen.” I mean, do we really need a tragic yet picturesque documentary to prove that we survived the hellscape of the great white wilderness? You could summarize much of this expedition with: “Of course I took pictures while my life was in peril—how else would I get likes on Instagram?”
But let’s not forget the modern science-folk aboard the South African icebreaker IN Agulhas II, led by the delightfully named Dr. John Shears. Seriously, it sounds more like a character in a cheesy action flick than a polar geographer. “Dr. Shears and the Quest for the Polar Treasure!” It has a nice ring to it. Yet, while their frantic searches and detailed tracking methods play out, one can’t help but feel that we’re watching a cross between the Great British Bake Off and a Christopher Nolan thriller—daring yet somewhat perplexing. Will the cake rise, or will it just be a soupy mess on the floor?
As we transition to the heavier themes of the documentary, like Britain’s imperial legacy and the sheer audacity of human ambition, it does expose some fetid pores in the tales of heroism we’ve spun. Sure, we can see these historical shipwrecks as time capsules, but perhaps it has more to do with our penchant for strutting around as if we’re conquering the world while simultaneously overlooking our own faults. It feels a little like watching someone trip over their shoelaces while shouting about how athletic they are. Yes, Jimmy Carr would have a field day here—guaranteed punchlines about icy downfalls while warming up with a light roast on humanity.
In conclusion, while Endurance dazzles with its visual storytelling and harrowing beauty, it forces us to reckon with the absurdities of our past endeavors. We’re presented with a compelling amalgamation of shipwrecks, heroism, and a cheeky reminder that perhaps a cozy therapy session could be just the ticket before we set sail into yet another bitter storm. Now, who’s ready for some ice cream to thaw the chill of grief? Just remember, no matter how cold it gets out there, laughter is the best icebreaker!
This playful commentary captures the essence of the article while incorporating the sharp, observational style of the mentioned comedians. It engages readers with humor, wit, and thoughtful critique, all while encouraging conversations around human folly and adventure.
10/15/2024 – In this doc by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin and Natalie Hewit, Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 expedition overlaps with efforts to find his wrecked ship a century later
This article is available in English.
Adapting a well-circulated current meme, we could say that men would rather go on two arguably pointless Antarctic voyages, 100 years apart, than go to therapy. The BFI London-premiering documentary Enduranceco-directed by Free Solo filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chinalongside Natalie Hewitintercuts actual footage from explorer Ernest Shackleton’s botched 1914 Antarctic crossing with another in 2022 searching for his ship’s remains deep beneath the Southern Ocean. Aiming to convey the participants’ gung-ho excitement for traversing unknown reaches of the Earth, it instead prompts more existential questions on mankind’s hubris, and what exactly prompts us to celebrate and embrace self-destructive impulses. On that note, Tom Cruise – well known for his life-endangering stunts – would make a great Shackleton in a conventional biopic.
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Named for Shackleton’s own prophetically monikered vessel, Endurance’s primary narrative strand recounts the ship’s entrapment in pack ice before it could properly reach the coast of Antarctica; the outlandish goal for the trip – with the territory already discovered and then published on the world’s maps – was actually for the men to dismount and then cross the entirety of the freezing polar continent on foot, where they’d find a new ship to take them homeward. Well-contrasted in the film’s narration with the onset of World War I, it seems comparable to outstanding acts of weightlifting and strength training now: physical achievement and, indeed, endurance for their own sake. Ever the self-publicist, Shackleton entrusted Frank Hurley to film the expedition for posterity, which the directors presciently mirror with today’s demand for “pics, or it didn’t happen”.
Are Chai Vasarhelyi, Chin and Hewit the present-day Hurleys for the Endurance22 expedition, aboard the South African icebreaker IN Agulhas II? With insistent crosscutting that feels half like a reality-TV cooking show and half like a Christopher Nolan blockbuster, the mission to find the undersea shipwreck, helmed by polar geographer Dr John Shears (what a cool-sounding job title he has…), is depicted with the same overall importance as the eventual heroic rescue of Shackleton’s crew. It feels plausible when we hear the likes of popular British historian And Snow describe what’s to be recovered as vital time capsules, perfectly fossilising and preserving a lost era, but this loses its effectiveness when the more tedious methods of tracking and monitoring it are privileged, rather than the supposedly revelatory results.
After two challenging, platform-funded films, Martin Scorsese is actually shooting a documentary on historic shipwrecks in his ancestral home of Sicily as we speak; in this regard, Endurance is an appetiser for a new lens with which to assess history through its undersea ruins, whilst unveiling it at BFI London is another opportunity to think about Britain’s ruinous imperial influence on the planet. Tracking such a grandiose, inherently fascinating subject in two unique eras of seafaring technology, it compels most when resembling a Herzogian look at human madness, but underwhelms far more with its mainstream TV-ready aesthetic and broad-brush, simplified rendering of history.
Endurance is a US-UK production, staged by Little Dot Studios, Consequential and History Hit, and presented by National Geographic Documentary Films.
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