To the Arctic (2012) • View trailer
4.5 stars. Rating: G, and suitable for all ages
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.27.12
4.5 stars. Rating: G, and suitable for all ages
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.27.12
Everybody falls in love with the
up-close-and-personal footage of a mother polar bear and her two cubs, but my
favorite sequence comes as the mom investigates a robot-controlled IMAX camera
artfully concealed to resemble a floating chunk of ice.
The bear, not fooled by this
subterfuge for a second, hauls the contraption out of the water — all this
activity caught by a second camera — and casually pries the bits apart. The
final act? The bear bats the now exposed, globe-shaped camera cover like a
beach ball, before finally crushing it to a sad mechanical death.
Pretty darn funny.
And also quite illuminating:
Clearly, polar bears aren’t merely ferocious — when necessary — they’re also
ferociously intelligent.
To the Arctic is the newest
awesome IMAX documentary from the filmmaking team of Greg and Shaun
MacGillivray, who previously brought us The Living Sea, Dolphins and Grand
Canyon Adventure: River at Risk. As might be surmised from the titles,
MacGillivray films lean toward environmental activism, and this one is no
different; To the Arctic is an unabashed plea for the world to pay more
attention to the implacable effects of global warming.
The cause can be debated from now
until doomsday — which, if naysayers continue to rule the argument, may well be
the case — but the phenomenon itself is an established, observable fact that
has a direct and dire impact on the polar bears, caribou, walruses, seals and
birds profiled in this breathtaking film.
The summer Arctic ice pack has
decreased in size by 25 percent since 1979; unless unchecked, it could
disappear entirely by 2050. In the long term, the cold water run-off will
supercharge the currents of the “great ocean conveyor belt” that moderates
weather everywhere. Additionally, that missing ice cap no longer will function
as a climate-balancing shield that reflects 80 percent of the sun’s energy back
into space ... and, frankly, nobody fully knows what that might cause.
In the short term, as quite
clearly depicted in this film, ice platforms — from which polar bears
traditionally hunt seals — once extended for miles over the ocean. That’s no
longer true; the earlier the ice melts, the more restricted the bears’
territory becomes, giving them limited access and less time to find seals, and
farther to swim without rest.
The latter is hardest on cubs,
which lack their mothers’ strength and stamina. We watch a mother and cub set
out on just such a journey — a possible “journey to nowhere,” as narrator Meryl
Streep calmly informs us — and when the mother eventually makes landfall, she’s
alone.
Polar bears may have become the
most visible symbol of such temperature-enhanced peril, but they’re by no means
alone. The receding ice also impacts seal colonies seeking a stable place to bear
and raise their young; caribou on their annual migratory trek confront
once-manageable rivers that now have become rising torrents, with currents that
sweep away the youngest members of the herds.
Fortunately, this film isn’t
exclusively doom and gloom. The opening credits are a blast, making the best
use of 3D effects that I’ve ever seen, as each on-screen name — rendered in
chunks of ice — explodes directly toward the camera, showering the viewer with
shards. Even seasoned 3D fans will be inclined to duck.
The opening panorama shot is
breathtaking, as we slowly descend to race alongside the leading edge of a
polar glacier that extends as far as the eye can see. Massive waterfalls, fed
by the melting ice above, pour from the top of the glacier into the ocean. The
sense of scale is deceptive; at first, from a distance, the glacier seems a
“reasonable” size ... but as we pull closer, the mountains of ice keeps
growing. Simply stunning.
At another point, the IMAX camera
is plonked onto a sled being pulled by a team of dogs; the result feels like
the best motion-control ride ever designed, as we race at dog’s-eye level
across the tundra.
Then, too, watching polar bears
swim is far more dramatic from beneath these huge beasts, with their
hubcap-size front paws quite efficiently churning the water. Kudos to
underwater cameramen Bob Cranston and Howard Hall, who dove just a bit deeper
than the bears usually venture, and focused upward. We can’t help feeling
nervous, while marveling at this footage, since Streep has just informed us
that polar bears are the only mammals that will actively hunt man.
“Cranston waited for the animals’
natural curiosity to cause them to investigate the cameras,” Greg MacGillivray
explains, in the press notes. “Fortunately, bears don’t like to dive too deep,
so by staying just outside of their comfort zone, he felt relatively safe.”
I like the use of that word,
relatively.
Similar underwater shots of a
walrus colony are equally dramatic, particularly when a curious baby swims
directly up to the camera and bonks its nose against the lens protector. But
nothing compares to the footage obtained amid subfreezing arctic brine, when a
diver brings the 400-pound submersible IMAX camera down through a hole bored in
the four-foot surface ice.
“This experience, as risky as
cave diving,” MacGillivray explains, “has the added danger that beyond 45
minutes, your hands will freeze stiff, your brain will numb to a crawl, and
you’d better find the exit ... and soon.”
The film’s undisputed stars,
though, are the aforementioned mother polar bear and her twin cubs. As
recounted by director of photography Brad Ohlund, who introduced the film prior
to its Sacramento premiere last week, the filmmaking team spent a month aboard
the 130-foot icebreaker MS Havsel. Polar bears are, by nature, wary of any
intrusions; footage of their behavior usually is obtained only with
long-distance lenses.
But this particular mother seemed
unconcerned by the ship’s presence, perhaps — as Ohlund suggested — being smart
enough to surmise that the massive vessel might help discourage roving hungry
male polar bears, looking to kill and eat the cubs.
“She’d be sitting on a chunk of
ice, and we’d be about 100 feet away with the engine turned off,” Ohlund
recalled. “The wind would come up, and push us toward her. We’d end up within
30 to 50 feet, and she would just look at us, take note and go about her
business in a manner that surprised all of us, including our guides, who had
never seen anything like it.
“It was quite astonishing.”
Our reward is intimate footage
that shows the mother romping with her cubs, nursing them — while reclining, as
if seated in an icy chair — and giving them a lesson in seal-hunting. The cubs
rough-house, explore the ice floes and play in the snow as their mother
watches, all the while testing the air for danger.
As Streep explains, off-camera,
the mother successfully repelled four separate raids by hungry males during the
five days that the filmmakers kept close watch.
To the Arctic is scored by
longtime MacGillivray associate Steve Wood, who has perhaps too strong a
fondness for choral enhancements. The soundtrack also includes several songs by
Paul McCarthy, each cleverly employed to augment the emotion of a given scene:
“Little Willow” frames a caribou mother bonding with her new calf; “Mr.
Bellamy” introduces a montage of walrus antics; and the mother polar bear
wrestles with her twins as “I’m Carrying” fills the impressive Esquire theater
speaker system.
The majesty of the Arctic
panorama is amplified by The Beatles’ “Because,” which lends a solemn note to
the already inspiring footage.
Yes, To the Arctic is
propaganda filmmaking, a fact the MacGillivrays certainly don’t conceal. The
documentary is a highly visible element of their planned 20-year multi-platform
ocean media campaign, designed to open minds and win hearts much the way
Jacques Cousteau’s television specials did in the 1960s and ’70s.
The message certainly doesn’t
interfere with this film’s many delights, and it’s hard to complain when
advocacy cinema is produced with such talent, love and dedication.
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