Camping in Antarctica. On the edge of a plane crash site. Working 12 hour shifts everyday for two weeks. Finding and removing bodies and body parts. Such was the horrendous life-changing experience for eleven members of the New Zealand police force in 1979 that is retold in Erebus: Into the Unknown.
An Air New Zealand plane had gone missing in November during a sightseeing flight over Antarctica. The fate of the 257 passengers was soon discovered – the plane had flown directly into Mount Erebus, the highest mountain in Antarctica. With winter approaching a team of ill-trained and badly-equipped policemen were dispatched from Auckland to bring the bodies back. This was made clear to them – they were engaged in body retrieval, not investigation. Locate, identify, record, bag…
Directed by Charlotte Purdy the film combines reconstructions with archive footage, photographs and interviews with those involved. The youngest officer, Stuart Leighton recounts much of the story and along with his colleagues describes the horrors they encountered – including crevasses waiting to trap the unwary and having to eat with the same gloves they used to move the bodies. The film heads in two directions, primarily showing the grotesque sights and experiences the men faced every day and the effects these had on their subsequent lives. But there is also the suggestion that Air New Zealand was involved in a cover-up designed to shore up the company’s reputation, with evidence going missing, and the Chief Executive authorising the destruction of ‘irrelevant documents’. Of course he was the one who defined irrelevant.
The dramatised reconstructions in New Zealand have been given a suitably retro filter to conjure up the Seventies feel of beige tank tops and grey suitcases. In comparison the scenes in Antarctica are stunningly white and appear beautiful – until attention returns to the macabre task at hand.
Shining light on a controversial subject, Erebus is only 67 minutes long and could have spent longer investigating the appearance of senior Air New Zealand staff at the crash site and the fate of some vital evidence – the police found the captain’s notebook yet it subsequently disappeared. Was the cause of the accident pilot error or had the crew been given faulty information? The film spends longer with the investigator’s stories and portrays professionals doing a deeply unpleasant job with determination.
EREBUS: INTO THE UNKNOWN is in cinemas 9 January and DVD/On Demand 12 January
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