I hadn't heard of this film until I read about it in Elle's December issue, but I'm determined to go and see it now! This film charts the spring 2005 mission that environmental photographer James Balog went on to document the changing climate of the Arctic. On assignment from National Geographic, he managed to gather "undeniable evidence of our changing planet." Chasing Ice is the chronicle of what Balog found when he and a band of young adventurers set out to document climate change with the use of 25 cameras which took pictures every hour for three years in various locations around the Arctic. Using these "revolutionary time-lapse cameras... to capture a multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers."
"I never imagined that you could see glaciers this big disappearing in such a short time," Balog says.
This is from the website:
As the debate polarizes America and the intensity of natural disasters ramps up globally, Balog finds himself at the end of his tether. Battling untested technology in subzero conditions, he comes face to face with his own mortality. It takes years for Balog to see the fruits of his labor. His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate. Chasing Ice depicts a photographer trying to deliver evidence and hope to our carbon-powered planet.A cool sidenote on this film: the documentary score is complimented by a hauntingly beautiful song, "Before My Time" by J. Ralph, which Scarlett Johansson sings over the credits (see video below). It's an eerie addition to the frightening images of entire sheets of ice vanishing in a matter of months.
