Design friend

What's most instantly striking about this restoration of original footage from Captain Scott's ill-fated 1910 Antarctic Expedition is its immediacy. Yes, it might have been filmed more than a century ago (owing, happily, to a radically far-sighted decision by Scott to document the trip on film); yes, Simon Fisher Turner's superb new score (featuring found sounds and archival recordings, including an original sample of the ship's bell and ambient recording taken inside Scott's tent) evokes the sublime, uncanny nature of such desolate uncharted country; and yes, the colourful tints and grading of the newly restored print highlight the utterly alien, transfixing nature of some of the sights and natural phenomena Scott's crew witnessed, like the midnight sun rippling on the sea. But it's the unexpected warmth and humour of Ponting's inter-titles that instantly charm the viewer. Like his footage, Ponting's commentary delights as much in the humble details of the expedition as in its epic sweep. He spends a good deal of time profiling the non-human members of Scott's crew, as well as the local wildlife - first showing, then describing how the Siberian snow ponies "nibbled in sheer joy at the snow" after arriving at the Great Ice Barrier after the 400 mile initial voyage from New Zealand; then, after painstakingly capturing the hatching of a Skua gull from its egg, he clarifies the final result, a wriggling mass of feathers with: "This is not a Yorkshire Terrier. It is still a chick". Ponting's fascinated enthusiasm is infectious, and the air of familiar intimacy he establishes - he doesn't just train his eye the natural surroundings, but filmed Scott and his companions cooking together and huddling for warmth like sardines in their tent - lends the inevitably tragic denouement to his film all the more poignancy.