'antarctica: A Year On Ice’ Review: Frozen Wonderland

Every year, several thousand people prove their intestinal fortitude by taking jobs at the research stations in Antarctica. The highs and lows experienced by these intrepid souls, combined with some astounding nature photography, make up the entertaining and enlightening documentary “Antarctica: A Year on Ice.” The film was made by someone who has walked the walk: communications engineer Anthony Powell, a New Zealander who worked at McMurdo Station for more than a decade and experienced a fair number of the continent’s merciless winters. In his spare time, he filmed interviews with co-workers and took digital photos of Antarctica’s many wonders, which he painstakingly assembled into time-lapse footage that often has a hallucinatory look. The result is breathtaking shots of icebergs, stars circling in the sky, vapors blowing over mountains and sequences of the sea freezing over. There are festivities to make the winters more bearable, but the isolation, cramped quarters and perpetual darkness take their toll.