Red Knot

1

Yes?

How long?

Let me help you.

All right.

- I'm not...

- I'm trusting you now.

This is... this is...

you know...

husband and wife kind of...

Look at that.

Look at all this juicy juice.

Cut it all off.

Wait, stop.

Stop smiling for a second.

- Okay.

- I just wanna comb your mustache.

Are you excited

to meet Roger Payne?

Yeah, I'm very excited.

- Real live man, Roger Payne.

- - I'm nervous.

What're you nervous about?

For this week, for tomorrow.

Darling, nobody's expecting you

to be some kind of expert...

You don't expect me.

- No, no...

- I expect them to be.

Why shouldn't they

expect me to be?

Well, they are experts.

You're a writer.

I'm kinda nervous about

the book too, you know.

- Really?

- Well, I mean...

What do most couples do

on a honeymoon anyways?

They stay in their room, right?

All we need is a bed.

Or desk.

Or a chair with a floor.

You know what,

do you want me to go quickly

or do you want me

to do a good job?

I want you to do

a really good job.

- That's what I thought.

- And do it quickly.

Look up.

How's it feel to be married?

January 19th.

Fifty four degrees south.

I swear, Argentina already feels

like the bottom of the world.

But it's where the journey

begins for most explorers.

What draws us here?

For Dr. Payne,

it's the siren call of the whales.

He was the first to hear

their songs as songs.

The first to record them.

We're following

their migration south,

before the Antarctic

winter sets in.

It's mostly scientists,

but there are few others.

Family,

friends,

and us.

Seriously, it's one of

the roughest seas in the world.

- Really?

- Yeah.

Whoa.

- What?

- - There he is.

That's Roger Payne.

He brought

his wife with him too?

Yeah, that's his wife, Lisa.

- Right at the red light.

- Right, right, right.

And then take a left.

Okay.

Follow the arrows.

Don't, don't just

follow the arrows.

- The arrows don't lead directly to the room.

- Oh, this way.

Okay, this looks better.

- Bed and...

- The honeymoon suite.

Bunk beds.

It's bunk beds.

No one gets bunk beds.

Look at that.

Is that another person's room?

Probably not.

Yes, it is.

So we're sharing

the bathroom, huh?

With a stranger.

Very luxurious...

It'll just be you, me,

and a stranger.

I'm so sorry, babe.

It's fine.

But if we are staying

in this room,

then I get the top bunk.

Yeah.

Come here, silly.

Come here.

Gather round, please.

If you could please move a little forward,

that's it, thanks.

Okay, welcome to your life boat.

This will be our baby

in the glaciers

if we need to get off the ship

very, very fast.

Inside, it has food, water,

even sea-sickness tablets.

Everything we need is right here.

Radio transponders

and fishing lines, whatever you can

imagine, is right inside this boat.

Even it has food

and such things.

We have more than enough food

for everyone on board.

If we die when this ship goes down,

it's your fault.

Okay, I'll take

full responsibly.

Just lay on top.

We'll spend a few days,

go out the Beagle Channel

and actually go north,

north east through

the straits of Lemaire.

We're gonna go up here,

come off the continental shelf

into the deep water,

and do about 800 miles

across the southern ocean

towards the very northern tip

of the Antarctic peninsula.

If we can, we'll get

into the Weddell Sea.

This is where

Shackleton got stuck.

This is where

Shackleton got stuck.

The Weddell Sea is the heart

of the largest area of pack ice

that's generated anywhere

around the Antarctic.

The songs of humpback whales

were more beautiful then,

in the same years that The Beatles

were writing songs, than they are now.

They were more evocative.

They brought tears to your eyes.

I don't think

they do that anymore.

But they did that.

Why? Why could that be?

I have no idea.

Isn't it true that if you speed up

the sound of the humpback whale

that it actually sounds

little bit like a birdsong?

It does, it actually sounds a lot like,

if you slow it down, a birdsong.

It says, "Paul is dead."

Hey.

Where are you going?

I'm just going upstairs.

Okay. I'll come

with you.

No. No, stay.

Sleep, sleep.

You look so beautiful.

Go back to sleep.

What are you gonna go do?

I'm gonna go talk to Roger.

Just work stuff.

It's boring.

- Okay.

- Okay.

I'll be back soon.

Love you.

This was a symbolic act to him

because his handkerchief

was one of two things he had that reminded

him that he'd once been a civilized man.

The other thing...

There's something about these

penguin couples that's so domestic.

They groom each other,

they smack each other, they...

They hold hands

while they're walking.

Or make babies.

Okay.

What're you trying to say?

Nothing.

We would probably

make cute babies though.

February 3rd.

Sixty two degrees south.

The details of home

fall away.

Out here,

there's no Sunday or Monday.

No balance between

day and night.

A kind of prolonged twilight

sets in the further south we go.

This is it.

The world falls away.

There really is

no second chance.

Oh sh*t.

We're late.

It's fine, sweetheart.

Well, it's fine, but it's not,

you know, perfect

because they're gonna be

sitting up there waiting for us.

No, I think dinner on this

boat is a very fluid thing.

Hey, relax.

Why don't you go

pull the car around?

Look, I'm gonna go up and I'm

gonna keep them company, okay?

Five minutes, okay?

I'll see you up there.

Me, again.

What do you want?

I want my wife.

Just go up without me, okay?

Don't wait for me.

Okay.

See you up there.

...thing that he can

take from the land.

And also on a bit of

a hunting expedition

which is his pastime.

And while he is there

he is, uh...

confronted by nature and also by

what's left of his capitalist soul.

But I also think that

the explorer represents

someone who is still at least

in touch with the natural world.

And someone who is going out to

cross or to walk to the South Pole

is someone who has the opportunity

to experience something

bigger than themselves.

And that has value.

Don't you think?

But they're always men, I mean,

these people, why is that?

No, no, I don't think

they're always men.

They're almost always men,

I would have to agree

and there is a lot of it that's devoted to

this obsession with geographical prizes.

I find that

a bit tiresome, you know.

Then, you'd need more and more modifiers

to describe what this is a first of.

Would you try to attract media

attention to whale research

and to coral and

acidification of the ocean?

Awareness is important,

very important.

And I've tried to attract it to, in a way

that is concerned with solving that problem.

See you guys later.

And the problem of an that

explorer is to just get there

and then say that

he or she has been there.

And I've never quite understood that fully,

I mean...

I, you know, Columbus didn't...

Going to Antarctica?

Yeah, it's good.

- It's exciting.

- What about our honeymoon?

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes