After 107 years beneath the icy waters of the Antarctic, Sir Ernest Shackleton's lost ship, the Endurance, has been rediscovered, and its remarkable story is now being brought to audiences through the documentary "Endurance." The film premiered at the London Film Festival in October, before its release in cinemas in Britain, and it is now available for streaming on Disney+.
The documentary chronicles the 2022 Antarctic expedition that led to the discovery of the Endurance, which sank in 1915 after becoming trapped in pack ice. Led by celebrated maritime archaeologist Mensun Bound, the team aboard the icebreaker S.A. Agulhas II set out on a mission to locate the storied vessel's last resting place. "We are overwhelmed by our good fortune in having located and captured images of Endurance. This is the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen," Mensun Bound said, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
The team deployed underwater robots equipped with high-resolution cameras to capture detailed images of the shipwreck lying over 3,000 meters beneath the surface of the Weddell Sea. The images, compiled from 25,000 high-resolution scans, reveal minute details of life aboard the ship, including scattered dinner plates, a boot, and a flare gun fired by Frank Hurley, the expedition's photographer. BBC News reported that the ship's rigging, helm, and woodwork are all remarkably preserved under the icy waters.
The preservation of the Endurance astonished the expedition team. "It's the holy grail. It's the most complicated one. Just being able to reach the field and dive three kilometers beneath the ice, it's the level of complexity of walking on the moon," said Nico Vincent, the sub-sea manager on the expedition, according to Variety. The ship remains largely intact, with the name "Endurance" still visible on the stern, offering a tangible link between the heroic past and the modern present.
In 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton set out with his crew of 27 men aboard the Endurance, aiming to make the first land crossing of Antarctica via the South Pole. Disaster struck when the ship became trapped in the ice of the Weddell Sea in January 1915. The crew faced starvation and frostbite while enduring freezing conditions for 10 months before the Endurance sank on November 21, 1915.
Despite the loss of the ship, Shackleton famously managed to save his entire crew. He led a treacherous journey in lifeboats across 800 miles of rough seas to reach South Georgia Island. Shackleton and two others then crossed peaks and glaciers to reach a whaling station on the other side of the island, leading to the rescue of all 27 crew members.
The film features restored and colorized photographs and film footage taken by Frank Hurley. CBS News reported that the documentary also utilizes artificial intelligence to recreate the voices of Shackleton and his crew, allowing them to "read" their historic diary entries. "Being able to bring those diary readings to life using AI means you're listening to Shackleton and his team narrating their own diaries, and it is their voices," director Jimmy Chin stated, according to The Sun.
Chin and co-director Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi saw the discovery of the Endurance as an opportunity to revisit Shackleton's story for a new generation. "It's the greatest human survival story ever. It really speaks to having these audacious objectives and dreams," Vasarhelyi said, according to Ars Technica. The documentary alternates between accounts of the original expedition and the modern-day mission, highlighting the parallels between the challenges faced by Shackleton's crew and the contemporary explorers.
The modern expedition, organized by the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust, faced daunting obstacles. "This is probably the most difficult project I've ever been involved in... it wasn't called the unreachable Endurance for nothing, was it?" Bound said, as reported by CBS News.
The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system.