MOVIE REVIEW : Civilizing Rites, ‘From Pole to the Equator’

Far from being the sedate National Geographic special that its title might suggest, “From the Pole to the Equator” (Nuart, today and Thursday) is an arty, experimental film that uses rare archival footage to comment on Western civilization’s conquest of the world.

Using turn-of-the-century documentary films shot by Luca Comerio (1874-1940), directors Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi have assembled a travelogue of European imperialism that indeed does stretch from the North Pole to the Equator. Some of the film’s first images depict Europeans killing polar bears; later on, they show a different batch of colonialists slaughtering African rhinoceroses.

Along the way, images of India, central Asia and other places touched by the spirit of empire also appear. We see a British imperial parade in India, African natives being taught by a missionary to make the sign of the cross and a traditional peasant dance performed for the amusement of Russian cavalry officers.

The camera is hardly an unobtrusive presence in these films. Its subjects--reminiscent of the crowds that gather whenever a television news crew shows up--seem fascinated by the camera, and some scenes simply record exotically dressed people staring at the lens, wondering, perhaps, what it is.

Comerio’s films are intriguing windows into worlds that have passed. Not content to allow the images to speak for themselves, however, Gianikian and Lucchi have mechanically altered them, changing their speeds, tinting them with varying shades and occasionally switching to negative images. No narration accompanies the film; instead, a sometimes haunting, sometimes annoying synthesizer-based score is used to create a mood.

The effect is a curious cinematic surreality, sort of like watching “Koyaanisqatsi” through a nickelodeon. And despite the presence of certain recurring themes--white men with guns the major one--the Italian film makers have avoided the heavy-handedness that could have marred the project.

If “From the Pole to the Equator” has a major flaw, it is its length of an hour and 36 minutes. While perhaps appropriate for a quirky modern art show, the succession of silent images denuded of context can grow tiresome in the running time of a feature film.

As interesting as Gianikian and Lucchi’s tricks are, the poignancy and power of the film come from the exotic scenes that Comerio recorded long ago. In “From the Pole to the Equator” (Times-rated: Family) the faces of the past stare back through their newly acquired aquamarine tints, less images of the exploiters and the exploited than of people as perplexed by us as we are by them.

‘FROM THE POLE TO THE EQUATOR’

Co-produced by Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi and ZDF-TV (West Germany). Directed by Gianikian, Lucchi. Music by Keith Ullrich, Charles Anderson.

Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes.

Times-rated: Family.