Chasing Ice (12A) 80 mins ****
Jeff Orlowski’s documentary
begins as straightforward biographical profile, before shifting up into
something more urgent, impassioned and compelling. Its subject, James Balog, is
a photographer who goes to extremes to prove the existence of global warming:
his latest expedition involves descending Arctic cliff-faces to fit time-lapse
cameras with which to monitor glacial erosion. Orlowski’s framing –
interspersing field footage with talking heads – is somewhat conventional, but
the images he and Balog have collated are consistently breathtaking, and
accumulate real power. The cameras look on in vain as massive icesheets shear
off, leaving once-mighty glaciers – characterised in the manner of the
endangered species in Attenborough documentaries – to slump into the sea.
Behind them, they leave nothing – save colossal insurance premiums for those
areas subsequently flooded by displaced waters. If any film can convert the
climate-change sceptics, Chasing Ice would be it: here, seeing really is
believing.
Chasing Ice opens in selected cinemas from today.
No comments:
Post a Comment