Blu-ray Movie Reviews

There is a hidden society at the end of the world. One thousand men and women live together under unbelievably close quarters in Antarctica, risking their lives and sanity in search of cutting-edge science. Now, for the first time, an outsider has been admitted. In his first documentary since “Grizzly Man”, Werner Herzog, accompanied only by his cameraman, traveled to Antarctica, with rare access to the raw beauty and raw humanity of the ultimate Down Under.

This was done by Discovery Films and reminded me more of a long episode of one of their nature shows than a feature film documentary. It is full of wonderful imagery from the South Pole and I loved getting a glimpse of Antarctica and what is going on down there, but I was expecting something a bit more I guess. Herzog centers the piece a lot on the people he meets down there but doesn’t go into a tremendous amount of detail on any one thing. Instead we are left with a lot of glimpses of what goes on in that remote section of the world. This would be a great precursor piece to a miniseries on the continent by The Discovery Channel.

The HD presentation is good but limited by the source material. The film looks like it was shot with older HD cameras and has quite a few video artifacts associated with it. This includes some light jaggies, ringing and a softer look than what we typically see with HD video. Close ups still look great though and depth of image overall is strong. There is no denying the beauty of the objects in the film I was just hoping for a higher quality camera I guess. They probably just didn’t want to risk it!

The soundtrack is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio but being a documentary most of what you get is dialogue and subtle score. Tonal balance of the dialogue is excellent though and even the narration by Herzog sounds very balanced. There are some moments when the soundstage opens up quite nicely and some of the sounds you’ll hear are quite interesting; especially the seals.

Extras include a feature commentary with Herzog along with the producer and cinematographer. Some production features are included along with some behind the scenes look at the environment they were in and the people they met. An interview with Herzog and Jonathan Demme and the trailer is also included.

This is a great look at the mysterious continent beneath us. Fans of Discovery Channel’s specials will especially want to take note as this is a chapter right out of their book. I was hoping for a bit more but I still enjoyed it overall. At the least it is worth a rental.