Chasing Ice

Noted photog and National Geographic contributor James Balog leads us on a tour of the glacial north in this stirringly-framed argument against the sins of global warming. It's a three-pronged picture, stuffing a biography, research paper and technical adventure into one seventy-minute package, and often feels scattered as a result. The science makes for interesting brain food and Balog's personal journey is unique, if a bit overplayed, but the real show-stoppers are his long-form time lapses and breath-stealing snapshots of nature at its most profound. The centerpiece of this film, and of his argument, are a series of three-year-long panoramas in which we clearly watch several glaciers shrink and recede at an alarming rate; a convincing testament to both the presence and speed of the global melt. Though Chasing Ice can certainly be accused of getting caught up in its own self-importance (or lost in the data), those lingering tastes of proof are worth waiting for and the constant presence of Balog's powerful photo portfolio makes the ride there especially sweet.

Excellent film. Solid science and art. Thorough and beautifully made. Saw it at the Big Sky Film Festival, with the director Jeff Orlowski doing a Q and A following. Very inspiring work by photographer Jim Balog--the human subject of the film. It's a wonderful thing when a person of strong science background becomes an artist and visa versa. Science is rarely beautiful to those that are not intimately involved with it, so when a person of Balog's background attempts to tell its story to a wide audience (with the help of a film maker and technical experts), it comes together magnificently with beauty and the gravity of what it really is about. A must see for EVERYONE.

Chasing Ice is as strong a documentary as I have ever seen concerning the issues of global warming, and that includes Al Gore's terrific Oscar winning Inconvenient Truth. It centers on a man named James Balog, a National Geographic photographer, who with a team sets an array of advanced cameras focusing on various glaciers in Greenland, Iceland and Alaska in order to see the change in the ice coverage over periods of months and years. At first the complex and fragile nature of such a program leads to great technical difficulties, but eventually they do get the program on track, and the results are no less than stunning.

The film is not overtly political. It begins with a montage of "skeptics" of human caused climate change. Balog, who claims to have himself once been a skeptic, ends up getting deeply involved in the project to the detriment of time with his family and the numerous surgeries he gets on his knees. Throughout the film the science of global warming and it's general effects on the planet is tiptoed into, but primarily it lets the visuals do the talking. This film is beautiful and disturbing literally at the same time with treks across ice sheets viewing the melting in real time, images of glaciers breaking off into the sea, and the main focus the time-lapse footage.

I'm not going to say exactly how these years-long images turned out, but just mention they are insightful, gorgeous, and certainly do not contradict the science which in at least general terms has been settled for many years. The highlight of the movie for me is not however seeing the glaciers shrink over a long period of time, but an instant of change after a couple of Balog's colleagues have sat on a vulnerable piece of ice for a few days; it's a spectacular break off of ice like you've never seen before—I was horrifically captivated.

Chasing Ice is fascinating on a personal and scientific level, and in my opinion has to be considered one of the most important documentaries of this decade. This film rightly doesn't try to find solutions to the problem as it's beyond its scope, but it clearly states that there is a problem; one we can't ignore.

The photography is absolutely amazing in this film! If you have any interest at all in nature photography, it is a must see. For those who criticize, I would remind you that it IS a documentary. It's SUPPOSED to be about the process and the people involved. It is one man's story of his passion for photography, the environment, and making an impact. It's not meant to be a dry science class,full of statistics and probabilities. It is simply the undeniable photographic documentation of how significantly the planet is changing from the effects of global warming. It's meant to SHOW people the beauty of our world and to illustrate that is dying right under our noses. Perhaps photographs aren't as scientifically "valid" as modeling and statistical inferences, but they ARE irrefutable and far more convincing to most of the general population.

Chasing Ice This documentary meets art feature and Sundance select for Excellence in Cinematography is visually breathtaking! This had been on my watch-list for months & thankfully the Environmental Protection Agency (Great organisation which deserves more recognition for their excellent reports, which were the backbone for my thesis on environmental issues last year!) Organised a special one-off free screening in the Irish Film Institute last night and the first of a partnership series hopefully. It was great to see a full-house with an applause at the end.

The documentary follows National Geographic photographer and Extreme Ice Survey founder James Balog and his passionate team across Greenland, Iceland, Alaska and the Arctic as they installs custom-made time-lapse cameras to document never before seen glaciation at an extreme. The resulting photography is both frightening and breathtakingly beautiful.

The issues that many people seem to have with this film are that it doesn't engage in a political argument and that it doesn't provide a solution to the problem. Balog stated that this isn't a political problem, it's a universal problem. The point is he's delivering a message with his photography and he's letting the photographs do the talking, not tarnishing the message with politics. & the aim of this film is to spread awareness not to provide a solution.

This is an eye-opener and a visual reference as to how much climate change is immediately effecting our plant. At one point we witness footage of the largest ever recorded glacier calving, an iceberg larger than the island of Manhattan calves from a glacier in about 75 minutes. Politicians and energy corporation executives should be made sit a mandatory viewing of this. Seize any opportunity you get to go see this on the big screen.

You can now apply to host a screening on the Chasing Ice website!