#679 – Conquest of the Pole (1912)

Conquest of the Pole (1912)

Film review #679

Director: George Méliès

SYNOPSIS: Explorers from around the world are trying to find the best way to reach the North Pole, with Professor Maboul planning to use his invention the “aero-bus” to take him and his international crew to their destination. However, the journey is fraught with perils and adventure beyond their wildest imagination, as they struggle to achieve their goal…

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Conquest of the Pole is 1912 sci-film by George Méliès. Combining inspiration from Jules Verne’s Voyages Extraordinaires stories and real-world events, the story revolves around various explorers trying to reach the North Pole. At a meeting of the Aero Club in Paris, Professor Maboul reveals his “aero-bus” that he believes will be able to make the perilous journey, and the club nominate a crew of members from across the world to join him. The plot of the film is simple enough; following the construction of the aero-bus, it’s launch, and journey to the pole. There’s additional elements too, such as the inclusion of suffragettes that gate-crash the meeting with a protest, and even try to reach the Pole themselves. The film itself is classic Melies: it takes the viewer on an adventure to fantastical places brought to life with well designed characters, creatures and Melies classic camera tricks that still captivate over one hundred years later. While it does have a longer running length than Melies’ older movies such as Voyage to the Moon, and has a more fleshed out story, some of the scenes do drag on a little. The problem being that filmmaking had moved on a little from Melies earlier films, but he was still doing the same thing. Like I say, they’re not bad, it’s just a longer length film needed something a bit more to carry the story, such as intertitles that contained the dialogue: without that, the longer scenes don’t really deliver as much as they could.

There really is some impressive imagery and designs here, with the areo-bus flying through the sky carrying the crew, along with all the other craft that are also racing to get to the North Pole (remember that flying aircraft were very much in their infancy, with the Wright Brothers famous flight taking place in 1903). All of the different designs of the aircraft are imaginative, almost as if it was a prototype It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The aero-bus’s travel through the constellations again provide an ample opportunity to create all of the images of zodiac with fun paintings and costumes. This scene does drag on with no real purpose though. The highlight of the film is probably the fight at the north pole with the ice-giant; brought to life with some impressive theatrics and moving parts. Conquest of the Pole is classic Melies: giving the viewer impressive visuals, camera tricks and theatrics that stand as a monument to his influence and mastery on the medium. It doesn’t make much use of the larger runtime, and as such some parts go on longer than necessary, but there’s more than enough spectacle and fun here to enjoy the journey.