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Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

MartinHafer You really have to admire the filmmakers and their willingness to put themselves way, way out to get a movie made. After all, most nature documentaries require a few weeks or perhaps a few months of filmmaking...yet these folks were there for a year. And, most importantly, they were in Antarctica for a year...and as I said, you really need to admire these folks.The film is set at the US (McMurdo) and New Zealand (Scott) research stations and I was surprised to hear that there were up to 5000 people in the many research stations during the summer months. This portion of the film was interesting, as it held seals and penguins and life seemed not entirely awful. However the hellish and LONG winter was actually much more interesting--with the storms and things the folks did to avoid becoming like Jack Nicholson in "The Shining"!Overall, this film has some of the most incredible cinematography in any film I've seen and it's never boring. I also wonder if it was originally made for the IMAX or OMNIMAX theaters...it really would look insanely good on such screens.

Annie Shaw Antarctica. Perhaps it is a place more unknown to us on the big screen than the likes of our moon or Mars. It is intriguing to have a relatively untouched frontier still left on our planet. I tuned into Antarctica: A Year on Ice to quench my curiosity on the matter, and despite the wondrous offerings, was left feeling only slightly satiated.Anthony Powell gives us a glimpse into what it's like living at a station in Antarctica, but strangely, it's more tell than show. What I mean by that is instead of interviewing people and them giving obvious answers (they're going to feel isolated and they'll get to know each other pretty well pretty quick, who would have thought? totally shocking), which got boring pretty fast, it would have been more interesting to show what a typical day was like. Does the station only have one dining area? What's on the menu? Do they get vitamin supplements considering they've noticed how sickly pale they've become during the winter months? Is there an exercise facility? They get paid in cash? How do they cope with the perpetual daytime or nighttime? Or freezing temperatures? Negative 50 is no laughing matter. I won't ever know, because what's focused on are a bunch of clichéd information you probably already know or could easily look up on wikipedia.I also found it ironic how people kept saying the people that came there to work were "odd," and yet all of them seemed to complain of lack of sunlight, cold temperatures, and the monotony. Oh dear, they've all turned a ghastly shade of pasty white. Oh the horror! I thought the sunlight bouncing off the snow would intensify and give them a beachy sun glow. Actually, if they were really that odd, they wouldn't have complained like any other "normal" person, but what do I know? Okay, I promise to stop with the sarcasm now, because I have to give credit where credit is due and that's with the photography. Some of the time-lapse sequences are absolutely amazing. They border on repetitive near the end, but they alone are worth watching this documentary for. So, if you'd like a glimpse into the lives of Antarctica folks, you'd probably do better by researching the topic yourself or waiting for a better documentary to come along, but for now, this will have to do.

Semisonic Documentaries are definitely not for everyone. It takes a certain patience, curiosity and contemplation to watch the world living its ordinary life, just like it's the case with soap operas or reality shows that try to imitate the real life in vitro. And i consider myself lucky to be able to enjoy the documentaries, since it really is a unique genre that offers some unique experience to a viewer.Honestly, i didn't expect too much from this film. In my experience with nature documentaries, one has to be both really big and really professional to shoot a truly decent documentary, that is why i absolutely adore the BBC films with David Attenborough, moderately accept the Discovery and National Geographic products and am outright sceptical about everything else. And this movie had that amateur indie feeling that in 99 cases out of 100 means that the outcome is bound to be mediocre.To my big (and pleasant) surprise, this was that very "1 out of 100" exception. Yes, the movie is basically made by a single man, a time lapse photography enthusiast who spent several years working on a polar base in Antarctica. But the fact that we are being introduced to that vast and secluded icy world by someone who's not a stranger to it himself makes it a different experience entirely. Anthony "Antz" Powell doesn't simply look for some "fancy stuff" to film and later present to us. He actually lives through all these moments, and we are allowed to witness them, which makes this film a rather intimate experience.It may sound silly, but another great thing about this movie is that it's not just about Antarctica. Though it does share with us the amazing beauty of its pristine nature, it doesn't sell Antarctica as the main and only star. After all, this huge frozen world can be equally beautiful and depressing. Instead, we look at this continent and the life that managed to bind itself to it through the eyes of the fellow workers, people who spent months, or even years, there doing their job and whose impression of Antarctica and the way humans interact with it is the most honest and true.It's probably not very groundbreaking, but illustrating life in Antarctica with simple people's lives and experiences makes this movie really heartfelt. It is a documentaty, but you invest yourself emotionally into it, you care about the people shown in it, follow their stories, connect to their problems, feelings and dreams. This removes restraints between you and the objects shown in the movie, making you more than just an impassive spectator, almost like a friend to those people. You do not simply consume facts or imagery, as the so-so documentaries offer you to do, you actually live through them.Maybe i'm fooling myself, but 'Antarctica: A Year on Ice' gave me a bit of a feeling of actually spending a year there. And what it is if not a sign that the film did its job well?

bbickley13-921-58664 I feel like I learned so much about living on the continent, something most docs never really show(at least human life).Although subjects like the interaction between humans and other animals on Antarctica were very quickly touched upon, the imagery from the filmmaker told a story he didn't need to share with words.It was so beautifully shot by Antony Powell whose 13 years living on the ice met he knew his subject well enough to capture every thing the Terran is.I love the fact that the movie starts out with the section of Antarctica not always fully covered in ice. I knew it existed but It's always weird when it's mentioned (or seen). It sets the tone that your going to learn something new from this doc, and I did.I got a feel of what it's like to live in the arctic from people from all walks of life who do it year long. Not just scientist and military types,but regular people like fire men and store clerks (who run convenient stores on Antarctica). Living with each other in the most isolated place imaginable. I got to see what I've only read about, like the four mouths of never ending darkness after the four mouths of never ending sunlight. The monstrous weather. I got so see what these conditions do to humans like a brain freeze that makes you loose your track of thought and how living through the harsh winter makes you interact with others who don't.And of course we got to see penguins (and other animals as well).It was just a beautifully shot and interesting documentary from a filmmakers personal experience. Fantastic!