Chasing Ice

In the documentary Chasing Ice, director Jeff Orlowski set out to document the magnificence of glaciers. And also, to remind viewers that unless things change, these frozen wonders will no longer exist.

It's about photographer James Balog, founder of the Extreme Ice Survey. With his fellow researchers, Balog set out to photograph key glacier sites in Iceland, Greenland, Montana and Alaska. What they set out to do was to see just how much the glaciers have been melting.

End result: they have been melting too much, too fast. The more they melt, the more they exacerbate major weather systems. And what's been making the melting worse? Fossil fuels, for one thing.

Its primary case is that humans, while not the main cause, are a major factor in climate change. It argues that case with major scientific and photographic evidence. Among the evidence, Balog and his team find toxic sludge, residue of fossil fuels, melting the ice. Through time-lapse photography, Balog also demonstrates just how fast glaciers have been melting. It's such a well-argued case that should shock many a skeptic.

As a personal chronicle of Balog, the film is also a good travelogue of these glacier sites. Through him and his team, the audience gets to marvel and worry as the glaciers disappear. Overall, while the film's frozen scenery is wonderful, the fact that it's disappearing is not. If that's on your mind after the film is done, then the film's 75 minutes will have been well spent.

It's one of the 15 films, along with such works as Bully and Searching for Sugar Man, eligible for the Best Documentary Oscar this year. Even if it's not cited next Thursday, this is still a documentary worth giving a try. Whether major or minor, you're sure to learn something new about Earth's frozen landscape.