> REVIEW
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Chasing Ice (2012)
Worth catching…
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By Helen Adkins | December 2012
DIRECTOR: Jeff Orlowski
As one of the most contentious and controversial issues in world politics, the subject of global climate change has proven fertile ground for documentary-makers in recent years, from the Oscar winning An Inconvenient Truth (2006) to Jon Shenk’s The Island President (2011), which charted Maldives President Washeed’s fight to save his country from submersion due to rising water levels.
Jeff Orlowski’s Chasing Ice ranks up there with the very best docs in this expanding arena, presenting an incontrovertible case against climate change sceptics. But what sets the film apart is the director’s predominant use of visuals to compel and convince his audience over the use of words, statistics or lengthy theorising.
Essentially, Chasing Ice is a biography of one man. James Balog was a National Geographic photographer when he travelled in 2005 to the Arctic to photograph first hand the effects of climate change on glaciers. Captured by the beauty and majesty of his surroundings, ice became his favoured subject and with it came an increasing interest in glacial movement and recession.
The assignment proved to be a scouting mission for something much bigger as he became almost emotionally attached to the dying glaciers he shot, and increasingly concerned with the speed to which they were disappearing over short periods of time.
Such was his alarm, that soon after Balog launched the Extreme Ice Survey in order to chart the true extent of glacial recession in four countries –Iceland, Greenland, Alaska and Montana.
It’s this project that Orlowski follows. Balog faced a Herculean task in designing and setting up the highly complex system of cameras to withstand extreme conditions, falling rocks and wildlife, while shooting on the hour over several years in order to produce time-lapse video footage.
When the results come in, they are both spectacular and terrifying. What makes this film so engaging is how the beauty and majesty of what Balog so lovingly captures through his lens, juxtaposes with the meaning behind what is seen. The beauty of the glaciers, the insanely deep caverns, and areas of ice the size of Manhattan caving away from glacier walls are epic and wondrous. The speed with which they are dying is shocking in the negative global impact that will follow.
There is little controversy here. The world’s glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate. Orlowski backs up Balog’s evidence with some expert opinion, from world renowned scientists and glaciologists to the Swiss re-insurance man who calmly lays out the cold facts relating to the increase in US weather related disasters, from 50 in 1980 to 250 in 2010. Yet the film always returns to the visual nature of Balog’s work that remains powerful, astonishing and indisputable.
Subject……………………………………………………………………………..……………..
Another doc on climate change, this time produced by the co-op… 2
Direction………………………………………………………………………………..…………
Orlowski presents his story with an eye for cinematic beauty and elegance,
while his case is executed with precision, clarity and skill. 4
Verdict………………………………………………………………………………………………
A compelling piece of work that should be required viewing for all. 4
