Chasing Ice is a documentary about climate change. It’s short (1h 14m) and to the point (like most good documentaries, it carefully limits its scope).
The film follows National Geographic photographer James Balog on a multi-year journey as he and his team aim dozens of custom-rigged time-lapse cameras at various glaciers around the world (chiefly in Greenland, Iceland, and Alaska). The payoff — gorgeous time-lapse animation of glaciers receding before our eyes — is predictably stunning, and equally predictably held in reserve for an hour. But those shots are worth the ticket alone, and the intervening material sustains interest quite nicely.
Balog is an interesting chap, an unassuming and uber-gritty outdoorsy type who hikes various frozen expanses with camera kits in tow, pressing on through recurring knee problems (and surgeries) and various adversities (largely of the tech-snafu variety). He really is chasing ice, not fame; he pursues his dream like a quiet personal vendetta. His team is small and pretty fun to watch, and though I’m not always one for “come-in-base-camp, it’s-windy-up-here” mountaineering films, this one is so chock-full of beautiful icescapes that I didn’t even mind.
As I’m sure you can guess, the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS for short; cute for any Germanic sorts in attendance) is a success, and the resulting animations are definitely worth the ticket. I wish they played these for longer, frankly — in the end, they’re only on screen a short time.
The inevitable political backdrop is a bit tiring: soundbites of Sean Hannity and similar shrills barking about lack of scientific consensus, climate change being a fraud, and so on. And the unfortunate truth is that, despite Balog’s valiant attempts to convince himself otherwise, this film probably will fail in its mission of swaying fence-sitters or otherwise catalyzing a great awakening to the idea that climate change is real. This isn’t Balog’s fault. Some processes are simply not observable in a cartoonish way, and this is one of them. While the glacial movements depicted here certainly are dramatic, it won’t be hard for the aforementioned shrills to concoct smug counterarguments: these melts are cyclical, you’re not showing us anything that hasn’t always been happening, et cetera. On the other hand, who knows? Maybe the average viewer really does need just a simple set of pictures for this to crystallize.
I particularly liked Balog’s comparison of climate change naysayers to a patient with a tooth abscess going from dentist to dentist to dentist until he finds one willing to say the rotting tooth is no big deal. It’s true: You can always find an oddball (or an idiot) willing to look past the evidence to toe some party line; the fact that some tiny fraction of scientists “disagree” that glaciers are melting and that we are the cause shouldn’t surprise anyone in the least. Nor though is this a meaningful retort to the gathering drumbeat of establishment evidence.
Other positives here: Balog’s frank wonder as he realizes, gripping his camera’s CompactFlash card, that the sole record of a once-imposing glacier now sits between his fingers. There’s some great calving footage too, if you’re into that. It’s also interesting just to see how an operation like this gets underway, logistically — and how bootstrapped it really is. Oh, and yeah: Really pretty pictures. The night-time one is especially grand.
HAUS VERDICT: Deniers get heated and scoff. Glaciers get heated and melt. Everyone else: You already know what’s going on, so enjoy the pretty pictures. It’s worth a watch.