CityLife

Beyond The Pole

Ever since the success of TV comedy The Office, pulling off ‘mockumentary’ style has been a huge challenge for British filmmakers.

The latest pretender is director David L Williams with his film, Beyond The Pole, which he also produced and co-wrote.

It is a comedy about two hapless but well intentioned wannabe explorers who launch the world’s first unaided, organic, vegetarian, carbon-neutral assault on the North Pole.

Brian (Thomas) and Mark (Mangan) are very British heroes. Every bit the foolhardy underdogs, they’re ill prepared, unfit and have virtually no sponsorship. Consequently, it’s no surprise when their Arctic odyssey does not go as planned.

However, Williams and co-writer Neil Warhurst still deliver plenty of twists and turns and Beyond The Pole turns out to be a funny, poignant portrait that, despite its ‘green’ perspective, never seeks to preach. Theirs is a film with cold hands (and feet) but a warm heart.

The entire film is shot via the documentary crew or in video diary style, so the characters are ‘on’ constantly.

While this offers endless opportunity for knowing nods and sideways glances to camera, it makes subtlety hard to achieve.

Beyond The Pole succeeds in this regard thanks to some excellent casting, and not just in Rhys Thomas and the ever-brilliant Stephen Mangan. Helen Baxendale as the reporter, Patrick Baladi as Mark’s brother and Alex Skarsgård as one half of the competing Norwegian team all bring a balance to the film which is much greater than their line count would suggest.

So do Brian and Mark make it?

Perhaps surprisingly, that’s never really the point of Beyond The Pole, but it’s worth wrapping up and going along to find out.

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