Voyage au bout de la terre

Nowadays, almost everyone has heard Roald Amundsen’s name at some point in their lives, even if many people would not be able to explain that he was the pioneering explorer who passed through the grizzly Northwest Passage and led the first expedition to the South Pole. The film does not focus on a precise recreation of the Norwegian’s famous journeys into the unknown, but instead tries to explore who Amundsen was before and after, and also what made him push the limits of what seemed possible at the turn of the 20th century. We observe many events from his life that shaped his character and physicality, but also broke him psychologically and made him a somewhat bitter man to the very end of his life. We get to know Amundsen both through his bitter-sweet relationship with his brother Leon, who financed his subsequent expeditions, as well as his romantic dealings with Canadian citizen Bess Magids. We see what kind of man he was in private, and how he changed and reacted to the dangers awaiting on the high seas when given the command of a ship. (Camerimage)