Year on ice

I went to the Detroit Film Theater yesterday for the movie Antarctica: A Year on Ice. Filmmaker Anthony Powell decided to spend an entire year – summer and winter – at the bottom of the world to see what kind of people would choose to live there. Instead of the scientists we meet the workers who keep the place, in this case McMurdo Station, running. This place may have about 8,000 people during the summer, but it has only 700 over the six month winter. If you aren't on that last flight out in March you're stuck there until October. These people are your family and none of you can leave, so you had better figure out how to get along. You also must figure out how to deal with months in which the sun doesn't set and months in which it doesn't rise. Along the way we see beautiful time-lapse shots of the sun zooming low across the sky going right to left, the moon doing the same, great sunsets, wheeling stars, and southern lights. We also get time-lapse of such things as the supply ship unloading the thousands of tons of stuff they need for six months and reloading all the waste to be carried away.

Tom, who works with the fire department, talked about the arrival of the first plane at the end of winter. He goes to the cafeteria and there are all these extra people there (that plane easily bumped the population from 700 to over 1000). He is livid because he had to wait in line! These people didn't know how the system works! They're in the way! Come on, get moving! Instead of finding a table, he takes his tray back to his room and wonders why he is so angry. Moments later a few colleagues ask if they can take refuge with him.