I found the visuals truly stunning but they lacked continuity. It seemed like an exercise in gathering amazing footage of cold places, but the editing of the footage together told no story other than, "Hey, it's kinda pretty and cold up North where there are no people."
It seemed that the music was either not inspired by the visuals or the visuals were not inspired by the music. If I closed my eyes I could have been on hold anywhere in the universe, rather than transported to the Northern climate. It is all synthesizer based and is so much so in fact that I wasn't sure if I was watching a documentary/visual study or an extended advertisement for a synthesizer sample library. I could have switched my audio input from DVD to CD and played just about anything (Holst / Metallica / Enya / The Dead Milkmen / YoYo Ma / Sondheim) and it would have matched equally.
The DVD has no features other than chapter selection. An audio commentary would have been phenomenal in helping me understand the point. Perhaps that is the key to my comments: I guess I didn't get it and am not sure who this is designed for (my girlfriend walked out during the first track!).
My rating of 4 is based purely on the quality of the visuals which is a testament as much to Mother Nature as it is to the visual artists who captured them. The pilots of the camera aircraft were probably awesome.
It seemed that the music was either not inspired by the visuals or the visuals were not inspired by the music. If I closed my eyes I could have been on hold anywhere in the universe, rather than transported to the Northern climate. It is all synthesizer based and is so much so in fact that I wasn't sure if I was watching a documentary/visual study or an extended advertisement for a synthesizer sample library. I could have switched my audio input from DVD to CD and played just about anything (Holst / Metallica / Enya / The Dead Milkmen / YoYo Ma / Sondheim) and it would have matched equally.
The DVD has no features other than chapter selection. An audio commentary would have been phenomenal in helping me understand the point. Perhaps that is the key to my comments: I guess I didn't get it and am not sure who this is designed for (my girlfriend walked out during the first track!).
My rating of 4 is based purely on the quality of the visuals which is a testament as much to Mother Nature as it is to the visual artists who captured them. The pilots of the camera aircraft were probably awesome.
