Vivan las Antipodas!

Apparently, if you dug a hole through the Earth from London, you would reach the Antipodes Islands south of New Zealand. Russian documentarist Victor Kossakovsky uses that conceit to deliver nothing less than a portrait of our world, as seen through four pairs of geographical opposites. So, from barely populated rural Argentina we flip to the teeming urban bustle of Shanghai, from a Botswanan village to volcanic activity on Hawaii’s Big Island, from Patagonia to Siberia, north of Madrid to New Zealand’s North Island. Much of this is played out in rugged landscapes, reminding us that the life of the planet isn’t always couched in human terms, yet the effect of this spectacular, sometimes whimsical, always patient piece of filmmaking suggests that, wherever we are, we share a common bond with what lies beneath our feet. Unlike, say, similar globetrotting, image-led works like ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ or ‘Baraka’, Kossakovsky’s film is never preachy, allowing the visuals to percolate and affect each viewer in their own way. Striking, ruminative and entirely worthwhile.