Ranulph Fiennes: his expeditions were the last of their kind Royal Geographical Society/Alamy
On release now
EXPLORER is a documentary about Ranulph Fiennes, who led the first expedition to circumnavigate Earth from pole to pole without recourse to flight.
Its subject emerges slowly from snatches of past documentaries, interviews, home movies and headlines. The film touts Fiennes’s unknowability: a risky strategy for those new to the man and his achievements, though in time it pays off handsomely for director Matthew Dyas.
Fiennes isn’t motivated by mysterious and delicate internal forces; this is someone driven by ghosts. Four months before his birth, Fiennes’s father…
