Horizon

Ice Mummies: A Life in Ice

In this second part of the Ice Mummies trilogy, attention turns to Ötzi, the Neolithic man plucked with an ice pick and some not inconsiderable brute force from an Alpine glacier. Once again, as with the Ice Maiden, an impressive set of relationships are on display in the vicinity of the leathery character and his bedraggled belongings. By far the most important man in Ötzi's life is Konrad Spindler, whose chance identification of the age of the mummy upon its discovery catapulted him to stardom and a life of analysis and scientific monitoring. Spindler is fiercely defensive of Ötzi, like Frankenstein and his monster, although the relationship is much less emotional than Natalia and her Ice Maiden. A bewildering array of more minor characters emerge during the course of the film, my particular favourite being a yodeling mountain dweller, included as a representation of how Ötzi has effected the local population. All varieties of archaeological life appear in this film, from Professors zur Nedden and Seidler, whose double act hints at the Muppets Stadtler and Waldorf, to an extra from This is Spinal Tap, Hanspeter Schrattenthaler, whose bare chest and rock star poses suggest he dearly wishes his copper axe were a guitar. Also worthy of mention is the lovable Harm Paulsen, who lives and works in a reconstruction of a Neolithic village and whose lilting Danish tones express some of the more human elements of the sad demise of Ötzi, such as the family he may have left behind, providing a stark contrast to the strictly 'scientific' views of Spindler.