From running rapids to outrunning crocodiles, the Imax film Mysteries of the Nile presents a fast-paced documentary of the first expedition to travel from source to sea down Africa’s mighty Blue Nile. (The Blue and White Nile merge at Khartoum, in Sudan; from thereon, the river is known as the Nile.)
The film tracks a 114-day-long odyssey by Pasquale Scaturro and Gordon Brown, two explorers, which begins at the true source of the Nile, Lake Tana in Ethiopia, and ends in the Mediterranean Sea, 4,800 kilometres down river.
The Nile provided the pharaohs’ power source for 2,500 years of Egyptian civilization. “The Nile turned them into living gods, no wonder they worshiped the river,” said Egyptian Mohamed Megahed, who joined the expedition to test water quality along the river. “These dynasties are long gone but the Nile’s power remains.” Indeed, for two hundred million people now depend on its waters.
The Imax cinematography provides for both astounding panoramic and close-up shots. Tisissat Falls, in Ethiopia, are shown up close as a single massive wall of cascading water from which it is impossible to discern up from down. Another shot, in the middle of a camel auction, paints the surprised faces of a half dozen camels.
Massive panoramic shots highlight the fragile nature of the environment: one shot shows rapids of the water, the trees and vegetation upon their banks, and the steep cliff walls just beyond-illustrating just how narrow the hospitable zone in this brutal region is, often extending little more than a kilometre on either side of the river.
Another shot, in Meroe-the ancient capital of the Nubian kingdom of Kush, in present-day Sudan-bore faint echoes of Jared Diamond’s book Collapse. It showed how when the Nubians cut down 90 per cent of their trees, soaring salinity levels in the soil and desertification destroyed farmland, causing the kingdom’s collapse.
The journey’s dangers come to a head at one point, with the expeditioners caught between a rock and a hard place: risk getting shot at by local bandits if they stop, or endure class VI rapids if they flee.
The film’s exciting narrative joins personal struggle with natural rugged beauty, creating a sort of connection between the expeditioners and the mighty river. “We’ve all got infinite respect for this river. We realized that when we finally stepped foot onto the beaches of Alexandria, final stop,” said Scaturro.
