The Flight of the Eagle

The start of this reminded me of one of my Disney favourites - "The Island at the Top of the World" (1974) as renowned Swedish engineer Salomon Andrée (Max Von Sydow) concludes that he can build a balloon to traverse the Arctic ice to drop a buoy onto the North Pole - and beat the Norwegians to the title, too! Of course there's a fair degree of scepticism from the scientific community and he is going to have raise an extra SKR20,000 from somewhere - maybe even the King - if he is to manufacture something large and stable enough to deal with the temperatures and the winds that prevail hundreds of feet in the air. Set against a series of flashbacks to happier and warmer times, we now follow him and his two sturdy companions Strindberg (Göran Stangertz) and Frænkel (Sverre Anker Ousdal) as they quite literally get off to a bumpy and soggy start. The photography of their stark environment works wonders here at immersing us in some of their struggle as you can almost appreciate the sub-zero conditions from the warmth of your chair. The vastness and bleakness, interrupted only occasionally with some nourishing polar bears that proved invaluable to these travellers, is beautifully captured as we fairly swifly get a sense that this trip isn't going to go to plan. Von Sydow was always a strong performer with more contemplative roles, and here is near his best as a determined man who was not going to return with his tail between his legs and admit failure - even if that costs him his own and his friends lives. Stangertz and Ousdal also contribute well with their own, slightly wary, mini-brotherhood supporting each other as their often quite aloof leader sets the pace, and all three work quite convincingly together as the latter stages of their trek challenges their hierarchy, their pride and yet rarely their acceptance of the dangers of their compelling task. There is no need for loads of dialogue so there isn't; this is much more of a visual cinema experience that is chilling, a little psychological and well worth watching.