Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Mariam Khan Jeff Orlowski's 2012 documentary Chasing Ice featuring photographer James Balog gives a face to the massive issue of climate change through scathingly brilliant photographs of receding glaciers. This 75-minute documentary isn't simply a regurgitation of all the facts you already know about global warming. Rather, it's an attempt to show the damaging effect of global warming by bringing the audience into the melting ice caps. Balog's goal of spelunking into ravines and hanging off cliffs is to capture the melting and make it viewable for the public. Global warming skeptic or not, you'll be convinced that we have a climate change issue on our hands by the end of the documentary. The film starts with a string of news reports on forest fires, hurricanes, and floods that have occurred within the past five years. These natural disasters are juxtaposed with clips showing politicians denying the existence of climate change. Balog and Orlowski set out to disprove these skeptics by starting the Extreme Ice Project, in which they set up thirty cameras in different regions of Iceland, Greenland, and Alaska to videotape the actual melting over time. They don't have to videotape for too long to see the rapidly declining ice caps; in fact, the team only videotapes for four years and find a substantial decrease in glacier size. Throughout the film, the photos are so beautiful that they seem unrealistic. Due to the extreme climate in these regions, not many photos are available to tell the story of this frozen land. Balog's photographs show the ice, a stunning part of the environment that is rarely seen on camera from this perspective, and captures amazing shots of large sheets of ice breaking off. Using photographs does have its drawbacks, though; some may feel that the photos exaggerate the melting. Regardless, the bobbing icebergs warn you that the problem is worse than you may have thought. When Balog compares his first and last pictures of the project, it's hard to ignore that we are losing something of great value in our world. The film touches viewers and reminds them of how human this issue is, even though it may seem irrelevant at this point in our lives. When Balog compares the melting ice to a dying, old man, he's showing us how our land is similar to a living thing that needs to be taken care of. Our slow violence towards the land is a form of injustice that we don't even realize we are a committing until we look at the effects of our actions. Throughout the film, I was awed by this marvelous part of nature and seeing it destroyed left me feeling spiteful. Orlowski's unprecedented approach to educating the public on climate change highlights the effects of global warming and inspires viewers to help the cause. His choice of including silent scenes of incredibly massive pieces of ice breaking off into the ocean leaves you with a sense of helplessness and pity for the ice. The silence not only amplifies the severity of this issue, but also scares you into working towards a solution. The ample amount of still shots in the movie slows down the pace and really forces you to take a moment and reflect on the sad state of our glaciers. The photographs serve as proof to all of those saying that global warming is not real, and that its effect is not damaging or large enough for us to care about. The way that Balog teaches the audience about the scientific proof of glaciation is anything but boring. The use of animated visuals makes the science easy to digest for viewers. His comparisons to objects that people are familiar with such as football fields help place the issue in context and allowed me to understand the magnitude of his photos. Balog avoids the use of frivolous scientific facts or excessive numbers, making this documentary stand out among other science documentaries. Orlowski balances out the science with snippets from Balog's personal life, adding a warm touch to the icy topic. Although the documentary had its strengths, there were also a few aspects that could be improved. At some points, I was unsure of what stage the project was in, and this could have been clarified by adding brief subtitles stating the location and date. Also, the documentary was sometimes tangential, such as when it started to describe endangered species, but it quickly reverted to the glacier topic. Finally, the film informs the reader of the dangerous state glaciers are in, but it does not suggest any solution to lessen the melting. Providing a next step to mitigating the melting would make viewers feel as if they were a part of the project as well and may have prompted more action in the public. The documentary gains supporters for the cause but doesn't tell the supporters how to help the cause. Balog's sped up videos of glaciation illustrate the imminent danger of global warming. It shows the viewer global warming in a way that can be quantified, so that people can see its side effects more clearly. Chasing Ice is sure to send chills down your spine.

TxMike Distilled down, this film is to help convince the world that global warming is not only occurring, but the extent of the warming is being accelerated by man, particularly accelerating the rate at which CO2 and other gases are being added to the Earth's atmosphere. I state that without judging, just to get it out there up-front.James Balog is a National Geographic photographer and in his pursuit of "ice" in general came to a quick realization that glaciers, all over the world, are disappearing at alarming rates, compared to historical rates. His photography projects presented here are supplemented with long standing deep ice core data which show fluctuations in temperatures over the centuries, along with fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 content, as measured in the tiny air bubbles captured in the ice. It is clear in the most recent decades the CO2 levels have increased dramatically, resulting from such processes as burning fossil fuels.All this motivated Balog to devote himself to a very ambitious project, to place dozens of camera rigs in such remote places as Iceland, Greenland, Alaska, and Montana to take time-lapse photos for several years, to provide a visual record of glacier change. The project was not without pitfalls, cameras failing, or being destroyed by falling rocks, and simply Balog's bad knee giving out only to be repaired by repeated surgery.The product of all this, once the technical problems were overcome, is film of these changes in glacier ice in these various places. It is a remarkable achievement, and the 75-minute film documents all this very well and interestingly.I was able to see it on Netflix streaming movies. A nice surprise was actress Scarlett Johansson's deep, sultry vocal rendition of the song during the end credits.

evening1 Ever wonder how the Titanic iceberg got there? It's believed it broke off of a specific glacier in Iceland. "Calving" continues, only it's happening at a faster pace than ever before. These days ships aren't the main object of concern -- but rather the survival of everything that needs air to breathe.That's the message of this visually dazzling documentary from National Geographic photographer James Balog. He argues that rising levels of carbon create atmospheric warming that is destroying the world's great ice sheets.Softening, receding glaciers are raising sea levels so rapidly it's believed that 150 million people -- roughly equal to half the population of the United States -- will become displaced this century.Balog presents awe-inspiring pictorial documentation for the shrinkage of ice shelves in Greenland, Iceland, Alaska, and Montana. At one point, we witness a vast and craggy terrain collapsing into a roiling cauldron of ice soup. Balog and his team put their lives at considerable risk to capture such amazing sequences. Part of the interest in this film is the somewhat obsessive personality of Balog, who battles extreme weather conditions to complete this self-imposed task as well as a bum knee that doesn't take well to clambering up ice mountains and rappelling back down.Balog wants the world to know that radical environmental changes are happening as you read this. The time is past, he argues, to debate whether global warming is real.His message is urgent, and everyone should take heed.

parallel_projection James Balog has one goal in mind throughout this entire documentary: to photographically demonstrate the rapid melting of our earth's glaciers. He doesn't throw statistics at us (okay, maybe one or two), and he doesn't bring politics into it, all he does is undeniably prove that the vast majority of the world's glaciers are disappearing right before our eyes.What this documentary does is capture his journey to photograph these glaciers. It shows his struggles, his failures, and his successes. Yes, he may come off as a bit of a hero, but what he's doing truly is heroic and simply cannot be missed. The photography throughout this film is spectacular--absolutely gorgeous. In fact, he photographed an article on this topic for National Geographic, and if you've seen their photographs, you know the level of quality we're talking about here.At the same time, however, there's kind of this sense of impending doom amidst all the beauty. It essentially shows all the damage humanity has done, in the past ten or so years alone, and I can only hope it's not too late to fix at least some of what we've caused. If this documentary can't get you to see the world and it's people differently, then I don't think much else can, his results are simply that stunning.