Chasing Ice (2012) User Reviews

compelling doc will shock you in the end

[SnoopyStyle · 8/10 · 1 September 2013]

National Geographic photographer James Balog wanted to test his skepticism about climate change. With his Extreme Ice Survey, he was able to photograph undeniable changes in some glaciers. In this documentary, Balog deploys a series of time-lapse cameras to capture a long term visual record of the world's changing glaciers. The lengths to which this is accomplished is mind boggling.

It's a compelling watch and an important work. But it's the shocking final result that will amaze you. The visual of these glaciers actually melting right before your eyes will shake you to your core as it did to me.

A visceral experience

[dluber1 · 8/10 · 1 December 2012]

Obviously it's preaching to the converted here in Berkeley, but this movie is to global-warming deniers what sunlight is to vampires. You can't sit there and see these glaciers melting before your eyes and not be shaken. I had no idea it was happening so fast.

Regarding movie production values, it's a DOCUMENTARY folks, and a pretty darn good one - no one in my group was bored at any time. Really good story about this guy's obsession to document it, and awesome (in its original sense) nature photography, with some cataclysmic moments. We could hear some booms and crashes from the big-budget extravaganza Cloud Atlas playing in the theater next door, but I think this movie was just as cool, and it's all real.

@ JustCuriosity: Yes, it is an emotional appeal, and that's the point. Most people who are in denial don't have a clue of the scale of the problem and don't care, or they care in a shallow way about "the environment", but that's seen as some abstract thing out there somewhere, not related to their daily lives.

@Tracy Allard: Yes, the science and models are solid; climate scientists have been saying that for years, and they've been trying to get across to the rest of the world how serious the problem is. Meanwhile, the right-wing idiocracy has been shouting them down for crying wolf and even accusing them of fraud. This footage is undeniable evidence of the reality of global warming, and it's vital that as many of the public see it as possible.

I'm trained as a scientist and I'm painfully aware that 90% of Americans could care less about models - any mention of math or anything they don't understand instantly causes their eyes to glaze over. In fact, a growing proportion of Americans think that science is just a bunch of hooey made up by eggheads to pull something over on the rest of society. As Balog notes, half of us still don't believe in evolution. Please read Charles Pierce's Idiot America for more on the scope and magnitude of that problem.

A whole generation of us has been raised to believe that any nonsense can be true if only it's repeated in the media loudly and often enough. The only way that people are going to update their perception of reality is if they are forcibly shaken awake by events such as a hurricane in Manhattan - or perhaps sitting comfortably in a theater watching a piece of a glacier the size of Manhattan suddenly fall off.

Disturbingly beautiful footage of the effect of climate change on several of the world's largest glacier fields.

[emt409 · 8/10 · 15 February 2012]

James Balog and Jeff Orlowski team up in what turned out to be a fantastic effort in documenting vast amounts of photographic evidence of the effects of recent global temperature increases on glaciers in Alaska, Canada, and Greenland.

The footage is magnificent and the film is scored very well. James Balog's personal challenges in undertaking the project are also documented, and present an interesting angle to this style of documentary.

By presenting the footage in as non-partisan manner as possible, Chasing Ice avoids tarnishing its message with politics.

Terrifying, mind-blowing, a must see for everyone.

[Conormcternan · 10/10 · 29 May 2013]

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!

Beautiful

[mousee73 · 8/10 · 9 December 2012]

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.

A Beautifully Photographed Film which is more Emotional than Scientific

[JustCuriosity · 7/10 · 9 March 2012]

I enjoyed seeing Chasing Ice on the opening night of Austin's SXSW Film Festival, but I was also a bit disappointed by it. The film only partly delivers on its great promise, because it can't quite figure out whether it's a national geographic-style nature documentary, a personal adventure story or an environmental advocacy film. In the end, it tries to do all of these things and doesn't quite do any of them as well as it could. Chasing Ice is at its best when it documents Extreme Ice Survey's (EIS) beautiful photography of the melting glaciers perhaps better than anyone has done before. While the photography delivers an emotional punch it can't really speak for itself. The scientific evidence requires a lot more explanation than they provide. The film starts out with clips of talking heads criticizing climate change, but they never fully answer the criticism and never fully defend the case that climate change is man-made, dangerous, and in need of an immediate global action to remedy. Nor do they provide any particular direction for what the viewer can do either personally or politically to address the problem.

Instead they spend way too much telling their own story. They delve into the technical difficulties of mounting cameras to photograph distant glaciers over a period of years, the complexities of hiking to these locations, the personal danger and discomfort they had to endure, and most peculiarly the physical problems that lead photographer James Balog experienced with his knee problems and surgeries. All these personal stories are interesting to a point, but distract from scientific case that they need to make. This should be a scientific and environmental story not a personal narrative. The powerful case that the beautiful photography makes is undermined, by poorly conceived film narrative. The average viewer needs a lot better understanding of what the melting of the glaciers means and what sort of affect this will have on their daily life in the near future. A better narrative device might have been to show the melting ice of the glaciers and then film the rising sea level in other parts of the world. Some reports have suggested that the Maldives Islands might soon be underwater. Showing where the water from the melting glaciers is ending up could have proved to be a much more powerful narrative device. I wish they had done a better job at telling an important scientific story with deep political and moral significance for the planet.

During the Q&A after the film, Balog argued that this isn't a political problem, that it is a universal problem. It may be a universal problem, but its solution requires collective political action that is based on science not emotion. They are naive if they are unwilling to engage the powerful political debate that is preventing progress on this issue.

Beautiful, yet haunting

[parallel_projection · 8/10 · 2 February 2013]

James Balog has one goal in mind throughout this entire documentary: to photographically demonstrate the rapid melting of our earth's glaciers. He doesn't throw statistics at us (okay, maybe one or two), and he doesn't bring politics into it, all he does is undeniably prove that the vast majority of the world's glaciers are disappearing right before our eyes.

What this documentary does is capture his journey to photograph these glaciers. It shows his struggles, his failures, and his successes. Yes, he may come off as a bit of a hero, but what he's doing truly is heroic and simply cannot be missed. The photography throughout this film is spectacular--absolutely gorgeous. In fact, he photographed an article on this topic for National Geographic, and if you've seen their photographs, you know the level of quality we're talking about here.

At the same time, however, there's kind of this sense of impending doom amidst all the beauty. It essentially shows all the damage humanity has done, in the past ten or so years alone, and I can only hope it's not too late to fix at least some of what we've caused. If this documentary can't get you to see the world and it's people differently, then I don't think much else can, his results are simply that stunning.

Sisyphus Shrugged

[tieman64 · 25 February 2014]

"Since all of us are beneficiaries of cheap fossil fuel, tackling climate change has been like trying to build a movement against yourself— it's as if the gay-rights movement had to be constructed entirely from evangelical preachers, or the abolition movement from slaveholders." - Bill McKibben

"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." - Edward Abbey

A powerful documentary by Jeff Orlowski, "Chasing Ice" centres on the attempts of photographer James Balog to bring the effects of climate change to a mass audience. Using guts, determination and a series of well placed cameras, Balog creates a series of time-lapse photographs which starkly show the demise of planet Earth's glaciers and ice caps.

"Chasing Ice" is filled with much impressive photography, but is ultimately vague and reductive. A better documentary would have perhaps looked at population growth trends and the infamous logarithmic "hockey stick" curves seen when mapping atmospheric CO2, global surface temperatures, global energy appetites and practically any measure associated with human activity. Indeed, most of today's cutting edge environmental science is devoted to the exponentially increasing energy demands of global capitalism (about a 3 percent increase every year, with the US being the leading consumer of petajoules per person), a growth rate which is not only wholly unsustainable but slowly baking the planet. Already Earth Overshoot Day — the day on which we've used more of the planet's resources than it's able to replenish in a year — is steadily arriving earlier and earlier.

The elephant in the room, though, is capitalism itself. When economic growth stops, our economic system reveals itself to be a zero sum (in monetary terms) game. With growth, everyone theoretically can get a return on their investments and make profit. Without growth, however, every person's profit comes at someone else's expense, a situation amplified by the nature of debt issued currency (with all currency issued at interest, if someone is X out of debt, another is X in debt). The end result is that capitalism must continuously expand, virus like, to prevent itself from collapsing. Along the way it breeds inequality, debt and destruction as effectively as it breeds "value", "production" and "commodities". Meanwhile, the system's dependence on expansion is ignored. Why? Because to pay attention to the limits to growth means the dismantling of our entire economic system, a task ruling elites and those with a stake in it cannot entertain, even to save future generations. And so the machine rumbles.

Ironically, whilst some members of the US Congress deny the existence of climate change, the US Department of Defense's 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) openly declared climate change to be a "serious national security threat". "Climate change poses a significant challenge for the United States and the world at large," the report goes on to say. "As greenhouse gas emissions increase, sea levels are rising, average global temperatures are increasing, and severe weather patterns are accelerating." That the Pentagon would declare global warming a civilisational threat is surprising, what's not surprising is that it sees this threat as a threat to the ruling class. "These effects are threat multipliers," the report says, "that will lead to resource competition and aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions – conditions that can enable terrorist activity." Incidentally, according to the Pentagon's Defense Energy Support Center, the US military uses 30-40 million barrels of oil a year (1.3 billion gallons at a cost of about 4 billion dollars).

8/10 - Worth one viewing. Makes a good companion-piece to Herzog's many apocalyptic documentaries ("Wild Blue Yonder", "Encounters at the End of the World" etc), most of which treat human extinction as being foreordained.

Nice analysis, but weak on the actual cause

[jag999 · 7/10 · 18 July 2017]

This review had been deleted due to a report of "abuse" by another reader. Typically, there is no argument, just a report to authorities of "abuse", where there is none. Sadly, nowadays, having an opinion that looks at things from a different perspective is reported by the ignorant as abuse. More sadly, those that review the complaint agree with the complainant, again, where there is no "abuse".

Visual depiction, things change. There has been more CO2 in the air in the past, the earth survived. There are natural mechanisms that deal with CO2. What natural mechanism deals with the dumping of tons and tons of barium, aluminum, thorium, cadmium, chromium, and nickel in our skies? If you're interested in thinking outside the CO2 box, check out multiple internet sites related to 'chemtrails' or 'geoengineering' that I'm not allowed to cite here.

Example: "For more than a decade, first the United States and then Canada's citizens have been subjected to a 24/7/365 day aerosol assault over our heads made of a toxic brew of poisonous heavy metals, chemicals, and other dangerous ingredients. None of this was reported by any mainstream media."

Rather, planes (fitted with special nozzles) release aerosols "lines" in the sky that do not evaporate. At first, these lines are thin; but soon they expand and, in a short time, merge together. Our once-blue sky has vanished and has been replaced by a grayish-white toxic haze that blots out and greatly diminishes our usual sunshine.

Where Science and Art Meet

[wakeele · 10/10 · 20 February 2012]

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.

Images tell a thousand stories

[eddie_baggins · 7/10 · 10 September 2013]

Chasing Ice joins the list of growing environmental themed documentary's (see also An Inconvenient Truth, A Crude Awakening, Who Killed The Electric Car etc) that look to highlight the effect global warming is having on our fragile planet. Ice presents an insightful look into a particular aspect of this issue or non-issue if you see fit that while interesting isn't particularly involving.

Ice Centres its story on National Geographic photographer James Balog. Director Jeff Orlowski (who made the fantastic and somewhat scarier documentary The Cove) follows Balog and his crew's quest to document for the first time over a period of years the decline of some of the world's glaciers and ice capped territories from Greenland to America. The journey this crew of men take is a brave and commendable effort but as a film Ice just doesn't feel that structured or interested in making you the viewer feel a part of the mission.

A major plus for Ice and an undeniable scary beauty is the images it captures both through Balog's lens and through Orlowski's filmmaking eye. The viewer is in no doubt that what is being captured by these men and therefore witnessed through this film is haunting, one particular segment of night time images is sure to make the most jaded of viewer stand up and take notice.

Being nominated in the best documentary category in this year's Oscars ceremony it's clear Ice struck a chord with viewers and critics alike. At a short running time of 70 minutes Ice never outstays its welcome and provides another intriguing look into the Earth as we know it today.

3 and a half icicles out of 5

For more reviews and movie opinions check out – www.jordanandeddie.wordpress.com

Beautifully photographed natural thermometers

[tomgib · 9/10 · 16 February 2013]

As a photographer, James Balog is to me as I am to a cockroach, although I have done a little bit of glacier photography. So it is not surprising that he has worked for National Geographic and has made the movie, "Chasing Ice". I recently traveled some distance to Chicago to see this movie, which contains the most stunning glacier images imaginable.

Early in the movie he wades barefoot into freezing surf full of iceberg chunks to obtain pictures of water breaking over the ice. Right there I was hooked into this movie on the basis of the photography even before we get to shrinking glaciers and what they say about global warming.

The centerpiece is the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS), the project he established to provide dramatic documentation of the shrinking glaciers. He and his coworkers placed cameras with automatic timers overlooking glaciers in the far north to take several years of time-lapse pictures of these moving rivers of ice.

He also clambers over difficult, icy surfaces to photograph the melting itself. Rivers of melt-water flow down the glaciers and into gigantic holes, where the ice has been eaten away, providing a path to the bottom. To photograph this, he needs to climb down difficult, dangerous, icy cliffs that would be nearly inaccessible even to someone with two healthy knees, which he does not have.

There are several dramatic scenes showing his tribulations with his nasty knee and balky equipment. They remind us that such struggles are part of the adventure of understanding nature. There is a darkly amusing scene showing his fight just to walk (to get the facts) juxtaposed with the talking heads of the usual gang of global warming deniers (accusing scientists of fakery).

The payoff is the parade of the glaciers, the moving (in more ways than one) images of rivers of ice charging forward while the glacier fronts crumble even faster, eating the glacier from front to back. Other images show glaciers shrinking top to bottom so rapidly that it looks as if they are deflating. My only criticism is that these images went by too fast, hence only a 9 rating instead of 10.

Shrinking glaciers are natural thermometers, which help document the reality of global warming. I hope that the widest possible audience will be able to see this. It is not, nor was it intended to be, a systematic scientific survey. There have been many such surveys showing, for example, that we are not just cherry-picking the glaciers that are losing mass. Balog's intent was to provide the most riveting possible observation, and he has succeeded. Looking at a thermometer will never be the same.

Lack of Concentration

[BenjaminArlin · 7/10 · 30 November 2023]

Firstly I want to say that I did thoroughly enjoy "Chasing Ice", this was a film I was assigned in class to view and write a review about. With this in mind I did actually take pleasure in both the film and the writing of this review. Now talking about the actual film and the contents of it, "Chasing Ice" followed the story of established photographer James Balog and his determination to bring awareness to global warming while pursuing his passion of photography. Typically when topics such as this are discussed figures and graphs are the driving force, but in this documentary a different approach is taken. It uses personal anecdotes to appeal emotionally to the audience. Whether it's James Balog talking about spreading awareness and its importance to him all while he causes himself physical pain, or how he brings to mind the world in which his daughters will live if climate change isn't stopped, the invocation of emotions is where the persuasion is aimed. Personally I don't know how I feel about this, I went into the film many years after its release and already a firm believer of climate change so I don't believe I have any bias. The dramatization of a very objective topic felt strange to me. I did appreciate the cinematography and thought that overall the film did an excellent job sending its intended message. I just wish it would've done it differently, to me there were two distinct narratives of the film and this effect was so prevalent that I think they could've been entirely independent. James Balog is very accomplished in life and how the film captured this by showcasing his dedication, work ethic, and passion was executed well. The other half of the film was about the work of the Extreme Ice Survey, and how it impacted and changed the lives of not only the people involved with the project but also the general public. Throughout the film I almost felt as if the split between focuses was harmful to the fluidity and effectiveness of it. In my opinion I believe the biggest problem with the film was the lack of identity, while I was watching this I found myself wanting more details about one subject or the other. Almost like each narrative was fighting for screen time, one moment there was a heartfelt story about James and his life and the very next there was emphasis on a peninsula of an iceberg breaking off. The dynamic just felt awkward and forced. The conclusion felt like a rushed and unplanned point that just happened to come. The presentation of Extreme Ice Survey's photographs and the crowd's reactions was something I just did not understand. I think when the film was conceptualized this moment was supposed to be critical and inspiring, yet I felt lost. I had just watched the entire documentary which James was presenting, no new information was proposed, just an emphasis on the audience's reaction. At the end I was left wanting to know more about both topics and truly believe my interest would be satisfied if the topics were separated. Overall I would recommend this film to anyone who is interested in photography, environmentalism, or a fan of inspirational stories but I'd be sure to tell them that it's very average in its execution.

Such waste of an excellent topic

[tallard · 3/10 · 22 June 2012]

Yes, the photography is lovely, yes the photographer passes himself off as heroic, yes the locations chosen are amazing. But this film contributes next to nothing to our understanding of glacial melt or AGW. It is most unfortunate that someone such as he, who once claimed disbelief in the science of global warming, would be so assuming as to think he could take a couple of years worth of photographs, and thereby produce "better" or shall we say more compelling, evidence than thousands of scientists. To those out there so naive of science, please hear this: modelling and statistical inferences are thousands of times more valid evidence of global warming than a couple of lovely photos, PLEASE update your perception of the world! These photos are but anecdotal, they contribute nothing to the understanding of AGW. As far as movie production values are concerned, this film also underwhelms.

Mesmerizing Photography Masks a Not-So-Hidden Agenda

[drqshadow-reviews · 8/10 · 25 June 2013]

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.

Amazing

[chrisdavies6262 · 10/10 · 24 September 2014]

Your doco changed my life, I am now an active in doing something about climate change, as we here in New Zealand are affected just as the rest of the world are. The Fox Glacier in the South Island of New Zealand has shrunk by nearly half and we endure floods like never before and droughts. And unfortunately our government goes on like nothing is critical, but we are all at a tipping point and I find still the human race is walking with blinders on (for the most part) and don't part attention to this wonderful planet as it is all about the bottom line with money, I am 54 and I hope and pray that a revolution of change with all on board, and I believe until it touches all in a way that we can't avoid it might have to take place, and we are getting there, but what scares me is are we going to leave it too long for all the amazing species that didn't ask for this, and for humans well we just might be the player in us going extinct. Thank you to you and all that participated in making this wake up and take notice documentary. And to your family for their sacrifices.

Sobering

[jacob-chiong · 10/10 · 3 March 2014]

As one who has been concerned about man's negative impact on the environment, this movie still manages to draw me to the edge of my seat by the way it captures the polar warming impact in an absolutely stunning portrayal of the massive glacial melt happening within a short time. I think every young person must watch this. It is an excellent product of a very resourceful and fiercely focused individual and is definitely more worthy of one's time than even the most profitable Hollywood blockbuster.

@Dave - what is the probability of that computer in front of you coming together purely by evolution with zero intelligent input? If you can calculate that, even though it is just hypothetical, then you are a scientist. Then you can comment on evolution. Otherwise, pipe down on that topic.

Georgously disturbing. A Wake-up Call.

[Mario64 · 9/10 · 21 March 2014]

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.

One of the most striking documentary I've ever seen.

[theordinaryreview · 8/10 · 6 June 2013]

When I came across Chasing Ice, I was very enthusiastic. I always loved the Great North and documentaries, but even more these two combined. I, for example, loved Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World (2007) although it was, this time, the South Pole.

Chasing Ice follows the ambitious project of National Geographic photographer James Balog who, after first doing a short project on glacier, saw the impact it had and decided he had to do more than that. That's when he decided to put in place a massive scale Glacier Watch Unit by implementing cameras to take many many pictures so that afterwards, in time lapse, the glacier could be seen moving. The project surveyed glaciers in Greenland, Alaska, Canada and Iceland for a few years. This documentary is the story behind it.

The documentary starts with a mix of random news cast about global warming and natural disasters. I always considered myself a skeptic about global warming, not because I don't believe that the ice is melting, but because I know the planet has gone through a lot and is still kicking. I was quite surprised and forgot about the global warming for a while as the work and photos of James Balog were being shown. It is simply breathtaking.

Once their project started, the implementation of cameras, reminded me a lot of The Cove (2009) in that they also faced technical difficulties (one has to realize that the cameras were and had to function in the worst possible condition). I felt a very human connection as the documentary also underlines the risks, the annoyances (for example when a fox has eaten away at the cable or when an electronic chip has been malfunctioning and they just traveled across the world to realize there were no shots taken) but also the family of James Balog who we briefly see and the health issues he faces with his knee. It all helps to make the actual work they accomplished all so much tastier and the evidence about the glaciers are hard to dismiss.

I found it to be one of the most spectacular display of nature images. The ending is, without surprise, a warning for the public to take into account the danger of our behaviors. I think that this might throw people off, but I'd say it's a necessary evil. I don't have that much faith in humanity myself, but if there is anything that can inspire something to be done, it will be through these images, because texts and statistics never changed behaviors.

It moved me.

I liked: Breathtakingly beautiful. Human aspects. Harsh conditions. Team work. Stunning glaciers.

I disliked: Yes, it holds a political agenda, but where does mankind and politics differ when it comes to the apocalypse?

88/100 One of the most striking documentary I've seen, if not for the scientific dimension but simply for the beauty of the ice. And to paraphrase James Balog, as a photograph it is so beautiful, but as a human being it's very sad.

More reviews at: www.theordinaryreview.blogspot.com

Making the case for man's influence on global warming.

[TxMike · 25 June 2013]

Distilled down, this film is to help convince the world that global warming is not only occurring, but the extent of the warming is being accelerated by man, particularly accelerating the rate at which CO2 and other gases are being added to the Earth's atmosphere. I state that without judging, just to get it out there up-front.

James Balog is a National Geographic photographer and in his pursuit of "ice" in general came to a quick realization that glaciers, all over the world, are disappearing at alarming rates, compared to historical rates. His photography projects presented here are supplemented with long standing deep ice core data which show fluctuations in temperatures over the centuries, along with fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 content, as measured in the tiny air bubbles captured in the ice. It is clear in the most recent decades the CO2 levels have increased dramatically, resulting from such processes as burning fossil fuels.

All this motivated Balog to devote himself to a very ambitious project, to place dozens of camera rigs in such remote places as Iceland, Greenland, Alaska, and Montana to take time-lapse photos for several years, to provide a visual record of glacier change. The project was not without pitfalls, cameras failing, or being destroyed by falling rocks, and simply Balog's bad knee giving out only to be repaired by repeated surgery.

The product of all this, once the technical problems were overcome, is film of these changes in glacier ice in these various places. It is a remarkable achievement, and the 75-minute film documents all this very well and interestingly.

I was able to see it on Netflix streaming movies. A nice surprise was actress Scarlett Johansson's deep, sultry vocal rendition of the song during the end credits.

Film fails to make any point adequately: needs a re-edit

[f-odds-1 · 5/10 · 25 October 2013]

This is one of those documentaries that sets out with good intentions but ultimately fails to make a convincing impression. It would be vastly improved if it were about 30 minutes long, if all the irrelevant stuff about Balog were excised and if it focused on a single and simple message. As it stands it's unclear if the picture is primarily intended to show its auteur as a hero, to illuminate the alarming speed with which global warming is causing glaciers to recede, or to demonstrate what a rugged, challenging and difficult business it is to try to get direct photographic evidence of the glacier recessions (for all but rugged disbelievers in the impact of global warming, competent annual maps would do just as well).

What we're given is a curious admixture of all three elements. Balog starts by telling us how beautiful he finds ice as a photographic subject, yet we're shown only a small handful of his ice pictures. One quickly gets the impression that the cinematographer brings home such superb images Balog's still pictures don't compete particularly well. The business of Balog's knee I found just plain tiresome. A handful of the shots showing what a difficult operation it was to set up the time-lapse cameras would be sufficient to make the point that the task is not one for wimps.

The time-lapse photos of the glaciers receding are impressive; so too the shots of huge chunks of sheet ice 'calving' icebergs the size of Manhattan. But the long wait to see the time-lapse photos is not justified by the intervening material. I liked the comment that the glaciers are the planetary equivalent of the canary in the mine, giving early warning of a change that needs to be taken seriously. If this had been the clear emphasis of the movie, without all the subsidiary and — candidly — dull stuff about Balog's knee, the picture would have made a far stronger impact.

At one point someone makes the comment that filming and camera placing leaves you realizing you've spend months of your life just looking at ice. It's the responsibility of the director and editor NOT to convey that feeling to the audience!

More than just another climate change documentary

[Horst_In_Translation · 8/10 · 14 November 2013]

I will admit that I have been curious for this film for a while and after now knowing if it will ever get a theater release in Germany, I was probably occasionally tempted to watch it one way or the other. However, thankfully there were so many other great films and series that I was distracted enough and didn't watch it. So I was even more delighted when I saw that it's finally hitting theaters here in Germany this month, almost 2 years after its world premiere in January 2012 at Sundance. "Chasing Ice" is Jeff Orlowski's very first feature film after two short movies and for that it is especially impressive. The writing is by Mark Monroe, who already worked on the Academy Award winning documentary "The Cove". It can be summarized pretty quickly. The center of the film is photographer James Balog, who tries to depict and prove the existence and impact of climate change by making constantly recordings from vast bodies of ice with the help of self-triggered cameras all over the planet (Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Himalayas...). The first half was okay, even if it got occasionally too scientific for audiences from all ages to appreciate. The second half was better though and very much rewarding as we finally get to see the aforementioned time lapse recordings, which are nothing short of mind-blowing, and it's almost impossible to bring better physical evidence of global warming than Balog did in this movie.

However, I have a few criticisms about the film as well. First of all, I found the narrating about Balog's health issues really distracting from the story. Some others in the audience kept giggling though, so it served as comic relief to some point I guess, but i just didn't really like it, even more so when the story focused too strongly on him. The film is only roughly 75 minutes, so I just thought they should have replaced these parts with some lighter additions to the story of climate change maybe. Some parts felt almost a bit cringeworthy as well, for example when he sits on the sofa and shakes his head to several politicians going on about how climate change is merely fiction or also his big breakdown when the recording has initially not been successful. I don't know if it was real or added for dramatic purposes, but even if I can understand his frustration, it made me feel pretty uncomfortable. I'd have been perfectly fine with the parts where they interview his family about his motivations and how they see him and his endeavors. That would have been enough background story for me. Another minor criticism I have was about one scene where some of Balog's coworkers caught a fish and present it to the audience as their dinner meal. Now while I don't eat animals myself, I don't mind other people who do eat them, but this whole demonstration and how they were shoving it into people's faces was rather inappropriate, especially for a film that tells us to stop exploiting out planet, even if it's from a completely different angle.

Aside from that, you get a really impressive nature documentary. That water current which shoots down into nowhere was particularly impressive and it is brilliant evidence how, even with people taking over most of the planet, nature's forces are still unmatched. I'd give the film a 3/5, but I'll add another point for the brilliant Oscar-nominated song that is included. It was written by Josh Ralph and performed by Scarlett Johansson and Joshua Bell. You have to make a bit of a connection to link the lyrics and the film's content and maybe that was what kept the film from beating Adele's "Skyfall", but if you manage, it's a wonderful piece of art and Johansson's raunchy voice (which makes me wish she narrated the whole documentary) is perfect for the tone of the song and film. Really a thing of beauty.

Nice visuals..

[DBLurker · 9/10 · 6 April 2016]

Look, majority of us writing reviews here will never see full impact of Global Warming. We'll be long dead by the time anything happens to this world and I for one, don't care what happens after I'm dead.

Having grown up in third world, still living there and living in suffering with few moments of joy day by day, I have no intention of NOT enjoying my life (whatever the cost to the environment) to please pretentious westerners who suddenly realizes that they have been destroying earth all this time to become to so called "developed world".

That said, this movie shows you nice visuals. Including large ice-bergs breaking left and right. Very breathtaking visuals. And I found the human element (knee problems) OK as well, it didn't distract me even though, the interviews with wife and daughter were entirely pointless and could've been cut for more footage of the ice itself.

Too bad the movie does jack about actually explaining to the viewer why it's all happening (unless you already know from other sources, like I do). "It's happening cause of Global Warming." is the only thing this movie tells you. And you know what? This is what the guy behind this documentary is hoping. He wants to show the idiots out there ice-melting to basically layman the Global Warming for them. I get it.

But it won't do jack. We'll be dead faster from Islamic terrorism than Global Warming. I am pretty sure religion and wars will be still bigger threat to extinction than melting ice millions of miles away from your home.

547th Review: Chilling

[intelearts · 9/10 · 9 September 2013]

Chasing Ice is simply one of the best documentaries of the year. It shows how effort, dedication, and commitment can produce images that can justify change in global policy and public perception.

It's subject, the retreat of glacial ice due to climate change, is nothing new, but this is the story of one man's ability to singlemindedly pursue the evidence with a dedicated team: James Balog is a man with a mission.

Beautifully shot with mesmerizing ice images, and furthermore, a tale of real human endeavor this is a documentary that rewards the viewer beyond education or expectation - I would say warmly recommends, but perhaps, chilling is more appropriate here.

A Must Watch!

[annikasrandomemail · 10/10 · 30 November 2020]

Chasing Ice is the first nature documentary I have ever fully watched, and it did not disappoint! I grew up paging through my classroom's National Geographic magazines, an event that I believe sparked my interest in topics concerning our climate and wildlife.

The documentary itself is visually outstanding. It began with news reports acknowledging the problem at large: the terrifying truth of global warming. I believe news reports were inserted to present that although terrifying, the fact that our world is changing is the cold truth (pun intended). They act as a 'second opinion' and provide insight on how our population is handling this situation.

Beautiful exterior shots of ice and glaciers captivate each viewer, I had even audibly gasped at a few. My younger self would be drooling on the floor if she were to see the cinematography. Don't get too wound up though, following thoughts of the fact that such natural beauty can go away begins to loom over your shoulder. It was definitely an "aw, oh wait, this is not good," moment. I am a firm believer that each shot was included to force the audience to look at nothing but our natural world. Such visual appeal will lead us into extending our thoughts about how crucial it is to take care of our earth, the documentary almost forcing us to acknowledge this societal dilemma.

As all documentaries, secluded shots of the cast play as each member is interviewed. However, each shot feels personal, as if you were directly talking to them. Not to mention, the film's main character, Balog, makes the documentary even feel comforting. He truly connects with the audience as we see his personal life happen before our eyes. As Balog and his team venture on expeditions, further emotional appeal comes into play. A beautiful addition as it is an opportunity for the audience to empathize with the cast. In all honesty, I would have lost interest if Balog's struggles and personal experiences were not included. The film would feel too much like an advertisement, pushing us to make change and shaming us if we did not feel the need to. The elements of this documentary tackling the issue of climate change while sharing the life of one who is passionate about the topic is an effective way to influence viewers that they too can hop on the train of helping our world!

Due to the problem that is clearly evident, you can not help but feel as if something is looming over you. The document had me anxious, just waiting for the worst that is yet to come. Despite the film's beauty, it is most definitely haunting as it progresses. Shots of melting glaciers acted as nature's cry for help: Save me! I'm dying! Nervousness builds up inside of you, and I had wanted this to all be fictional just so there could be a happy ending.

Overall, Chasing Ice is a mesmerizing yet evocative cry for help. Help only we can initiate.