Chasing Ice: Movie Review

Despite early setbacks, Balog still pursued their project and was amazed by how beautiful ice is. James Balog is a photographer who have tried different experiences in photography that involved nature. Ice is one of the aspects of nature that appealed to him. Balog saw and photographed different structures which features different ice shapes. In the move Chasing Ice (2012), Balog describes the world of ice as something otherworldly or out of this world and it is then that Balog realized that the story is in the ice.

The setting of the movie is in the icy regions of Greenland, Iceland and Alaska. There had been a lot of debates regarding the effects of climate change and these three icy regions are at the focal point of these debates. Balog was initially skeptical about climate change. In the movie, however, Balog and the rest of crew saw how ice glaciers collapsed and how structures changed in their stay in the icy areas. This is because of global warming. Balog also learned about the history of the glaciers and how this has affected Earth in the past. This actually inspired Balog to show the film to everyone and let everyone know about the effects of climate change.

Climate change was discussed all throughout the film as the main cause of global warming. This could be seen in the reaction of ice as the team goes on with the filming. Although beautiful, enormous glacier collapses and quick ice structure changes are alarming. According to Dudek (2012), the film showed one of the most enormous evidence of climate change as it captured around 7.4 cubic km of ice crashing down. This is just one of the ice glaciers that collapsed during their stay in the icy regions. Dudek (2012) described the phenomena as similar to watching a city break apart.

There were a lot of disappointments experienced by the team as they pressed on. At one point, it seemed impossible that they could capture something important. Despite setbacks, Balog pressed on with the so-called “Extreme Ice Survey” where they deployed cameras on different parts of the Arctic region and utilize time-lapse technology in photography to capture multi-year record of glaciers. The time-lapse photos showed drastic collapse and disappearance of various enormous glaciers. Some of this glaciers have been standing in their place for years and are considered ancient. In a few years, these glaciers have reduced in size or was gone. According to Carrington (2012), the collapse of glaciers in Greenland lasted 75 minutes and is considered as the longest of such event ever captured in film.

The effects of climate change and global warming could be felt all over the world. Some countries experience massive floods when there are strong rains. This rarely happens before. Because ice have melted in the arctic region, some experts explain that the waters in the coasts have risen. This have caused floods in various areas all over the world. The team’s ”Extreme Ice Survey” became one of the focal evidence among climate change experts in convincing the world to actually do something to prevent or reduce the effects of global warming.

Works Cited

Carrington, Damian. ”Chasing Ice movie reveals largest iceberg break-up ever filmed.” The Guardian.United Kingdom. 2012.

Chasing Ice. Dir. Jeff Orlowski. Perf. James Balog. Submarine Deluxe, 2012.

Dudek, Duane. ”Chasing ice pursues chilling evidence of climate change”. Journal Sentinel. 2012.