"Dal Polo all'Equatore takes as its starting point films shot by Luca Comerio, one of Italy's earliest cinematographers-he was already active by 1905...Comerio's film Dal Polo all'Equatore (whose title was appropriated by Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi) consisted of an elaborate montage of primitive films shot, on the whole, around 1910. The remains of this film, along with other fragments of documentary and fiction films from around the same period, have been used to create a new artistic vision that entirely reflects Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi's modern sensibilities while remaining true to the exotic and voluptuous original material." (David Gerstein, S.F. Cinematheque). Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman observed that "watching this movie is like tuning into the television of some alternate universe. The headlong opening movement-a railway journey through the Alps-is wholly appropriate to a film whose theme is the conquest of space. From the Pole to the Equator ranges from the Caucasus to the Arctic, spending much time in British India and more in colonial Africa. Everywhere, the natives perform for the camera, participating in their own objectification. The result is a sort of pornography of power in which the entire planet seems remade for Europe's delectation...Seldom has the imperial nature of photography been more frankly acknowledged. The cameraman is transparently the great white (image) hunter. . ."