I've read a few books about the Franklin Expedition and it was great to have some visuals and scenery shots to accompany the text. It was also interesting to learn more about John Rae and the difficult situation he faced taking what he had learned back to England. This documentary takes a novel approach in its form and I respect that. However, I did not enjoy it very much. I would find it hard to recommend.

The story of John Ray's search for the missing Franklin Expedition, which went in search of the Northwest Passage in the mid-1800s, is a fascinating one. Unfortunately this film, which attempts to mix layers of self-referential documentary about its own making with dramatized scenes among members of the British establishment at the time, is painfully misconceived at every level. Despite some spectacular images of the North, it's an amateurish bore. The climactic device of bringing in Charles Dickens' great-great-grandson to apologize in person to a representative of the Inuit people who were maligned by the great writer as murderous savages offers a ridiculous and irrelevant conclusion.

I could not find Passage anywhere. I bought a copy from the states, a waste of £12 and hence me writing my first IDMB review. I got very excited when I came across this 'Movie'. I checked out the site, watched the trailer and when I looked it up here at the IDMB I tragically failed to notice the 2nd review and 1 star by 'Mr Avid'. The first review giving 5 stars by 'fergus—mitchel' in retrospect looks suspicious as it is his only one and seems a pretty slick PR puff. We tried to watch Passage last night but got very bored by the cutting back and forward to the 'making of'. I tried to fast forward to the expected drama, but all there was, was this tiresome switching between drama/doc/navel gazing as it lurched slowly to its cringe-worthy conclusion. I hoped for a drama or documentary and got neither. We gave up after 25 minutes of contrived, self important waffle and bullshit. It is a shame as 'Mr Avid' in his succinct review says John Ray's story is a terrific one and the cinematography is actually very good with breathtaking location shots. The NFBC wasted their money on this. I looked to see if 'Fatal Passage' had been made as a movie but unfortunately not. Give this a miss. Go get the book.