Ben Fogle and the Buried City (2023)
Montserrat is a small British Overseas Territory in the Lesser Antilles, roughly the size of a medium-sized English market town, and for most of its modern history it was best known for its lush hills, its recording studios (the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney both worked there in the 1970s and 80s), and a relaxed, close-knit community of around 11,000 people. Then, in July 1995, the Soufrière Hills volcano began a sustained eruption that would last for years. By 1997 the southern half of the island, including the capital Plymouth, had been buried under ash and pyroclastic flows. Around two thirds of the population left, many of them resettling in the UK under emergency arrangements, and Plymouth itself was abandoned entirely, left to be slowly consumed by the volcanic debris. It remains off-limits to this day. For a sense of what the island looked like before all of this, the documentary Montserrat: Emerald of the Caribbean (2007) offers a useful and affecting point of comparison, its footage of the landscape carrying an extra weight once you know what came before and after.
The disaster received substantial news coverage at the time but has since slipped into relative obscurity outside of the Caribbean diaspora, which makes it a genuinely worthwhile subject for a documentary in 2023. Ben Fogle and the Buried City was directed by Jo Young, whose background is primarily in factual television, the kind of competent, location-driven documentary work that British broadcasters have long relied on to fill their schedules with something both educational and watchable. The production studio is not publicly credited in the usual sense, but the finished film has the look and feel of a well-resourced television commission rather than an independent shoestring effort. At 90 minutes it sits at the longer end for a single-subject TV documentary, which, as you will see, becomes a mild point of discussion in itself. The film bears comparison, in terms of its approach to landscape and catastrophe, with Werner Herzog's Lessons of Darkness (1992), though Young's register is considerably warmer and more human-centred than Herzog's characteristically austere eye.
The programme's presenter, Ben Fogle, is probably best known in the UK for Castaway, Blue Peter, and a long career making exactly this kind of expedition-meets-human-interest television. He is polished but unremarkable as a screen presence, the sort of likeable, well-spoken guide you are glad enough to have along without finding yourself especially absorbed by him as a personality. The real weight of the film falls on the survivors, former residents, and officials who lived through the eruption and its aftermath, and it is their accounts that give the documentary whatever emotional force it carries. For another example of documentary filmmaking that relies heavily on the power of direct testimony and the faces of those telling their own stories, it is worth looking at Amazing Grace (2018), a film that similarly lets its subjects carry the moral and emotional load.
Ben Fogle and the Buried City is a compelling, well-crafted documentary that shines a long-overdue spotlight on one of the Caribbean's most haunting modern disasters: the volcanic eruption that buried Plymouth, Montserrat, in the 1990s. Often called the "Pompeii of the Caribbean," the abandoned capital stands as a chilling monument to nature's unpredictability, and this film does an excellent job of bringing that story to life. Ben Fogle serves as an empathetic, curious guide, but the real strength lies in the film's commitment to firsthand accounts: survivor testimonies are raw, heartfelt, and deeply human, while archival footage from before and during the eruption adds visceral immediacy that no dramatisation could replicate.
The production values are impressive for a television documentary: thoughtful cinematography captures the eerie beauty of the ash-choked ruins, the sound design immerses you in the silence of a ghost town, and the editing weaves past and present with clarity and respect. What elevates this above other documentaries on the same subject is its balance: it never sensationalises the tragedy, nor does it shy away from the emotional weight of displacement, loss, and resilience. For anyone interested in natural disasters, Caribbean history, or human stories of survival, it's genuinely fascinating viewing.
If the film has a flaw, it's one of pacing. At 90 minutes (longer with ad breaks), the narrative occasionally circles back on itself, reiterating points that had already landed. A tighter, 60-minute edit would have maintained momentum without sacrificing depth. That said, the repetition is a minor quibble in an otherwise richly rewarding experience.
Ben Fogle and the Buried City is a really good documentary: moving, informative, and beautifully produced. It doesn't quite achieve greatness due to some structural bloat, but its powerful testimonies, striking visuals, and respectful storytelling make it essential viewing for anyone curious about this overlooked chapter of Caribbean history. Well worth your time, just be prepared for a few moments where you'll wish the editor had been a little more ruthless.
Whatever reservations one might have about pacing or structure, Ben Fogle and the Buried City performs a genuine service by returning attention to a community and a catastrophe that the wider world has largely moved on from. The buried streets of Plymouth are an extraordinary, eerie subject, and the people who fled them deserve to have their stories told with care. Young's film mostly rises to that responsibility. It is the sort of documentary that television does well when it is trying: informative without being dry, emotional without being manipulative, and grounded in a specific place that rewards the time you give it. Montserrat lost its capital and a large part of its population in the space of a couple of years, and somehow life, community, and a kind of stubborn hopefulness carried on. That is worth ninety minutes of anyone's evening, even if a few of those minutes could probably have been trimmed.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2023 | Watched: 2026-06-01
