OVP: Chasing Ice (2012)

Film: Chasing Ice (2012)
Stars: James Balog
Director: Jeff Orlowski
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Song-"Before My Time")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Judging a documentary, for me, is always a bit of a headache.  One of the main reasons that I discounted documentaries from the OVP (this is a part of the OVP because of the Song nomination-the films cited in Best Documentary are not), is that I feel like I (and everyone else) tend to favor a documentary more for my ability to agree with it than for its filmic abilities.  Movies like Chasing Ice resonate more profoundly with me because I so heartily agree with the message they are bringing to the screen.

And yet, I do feel like I can separate enough from a film whether or not it is delivering an effective message or not, and here, Chasing Ice is more than effective in delivering that message.  The film tells the tale of the receding glaciers, focusing primarily on Greenland, but also Iceland, Alaska, and Montana.  The movie is a staggering, difficult to grasp in its magnitude look at how climate change is irrevocably depleting the miles and miles of ice that make up the northernmost points on our planet.

James Balog, a world-renowned photographer and our meticulous star, sets up cameras in the remotest, most desolate places in the world, and instead of focusing on polar bears or other animals, as is oftentimes the case in these documentaries, focuses on something that may resonate even more fervently with the audience: the glaciers, and the majesty that they contain.  Balog haunts the audience with some of the most awe-inspiring, beautiful, and eventually horrifying images you've ever seen: majestic, crystal blue caverns of ice, like perfectly sculpted glass, littered throughout Greenland as if we were in a frozen MoMA, and then shows how this is slowly disappearing due to climate change.  The film gains much of its subconscious power from its ability to not only show clean-cut, easily-accessible proof that climate change is causing these glaciers to change, but also by showing the aesthetic destruction of the glaciers, knowing that they may never come back if drastic change isn't made.

And that, of course, is the point of a documentary-change.  The film, despite it being only ten people in the audience (it'd been playing for weeks, and was on its penultimate night in my cinematic market), received a respect few films get-everyone in the theater stayed through the credits, and it received a smattering of applause.  The film shows complete and very relatable evidence of global warming, and how any delay on this pressing issue will continue to devastate the Arctic, and continue to cause the intense shifts in weather patterns and a rise in the sea level.  To get onto my soap box for a second, the science behind global warming is beyond doubt-the so-called "debate" in the scientific community over whether global warming is real and manmade is nonexistent, and to be even more blunt, any politician or politically-minded person who objects at this point to its existence is either afraid or wholly and truly ignorant, and in an issue this important, there is room for neither.  The film links to a number of ways to shrink your carbon footprint, but as the President noted this past week, it's important that we take legislative action to stop the damaging effects of global warming as well as individual.  Call your congressman or senator (or, for our international readers, whomever represents you in government), and urge them to pass significant legislation to protect our earth and future generations, so that films like Chasing Ice are seen as films that made a difference, and not as messages that should have been heeded and were instead ignored.

Getting off my soap box, I must of course end with the Oscar nomination at hand.  The film's beautiful photography litters its end credits, which likely helped J. Ralph gain a nomination for his spare, lovely song, "Before My Time."  The song has a melancholic ring, and unlike many other end credit songs, gains an emotional connection with the audience, as it's showing the gorgeous icy landscape alongside the music.  The song is sung by Scarlett Johansson, an actress I desperately wish would challenge herself more, as the chilling rasp of her voice is begging for her to play a doomed night club singer.  Were it not for the fact that Adele is about to storm the Oscars with an easy win for Best Song, I'd say that J. Ralph's ode could be an upset contender for a win at the Oscars.

And what about you-what do you think of J. Ralph's chances?  Do you feel like Chasing Ice reached its intended audience, or is it more preaching to the choir?  And what is your favorite "carbon-footprint reducing" tip?