SXSW Review: Chasing Ice

James Balog is an award-winning environmental photographer whose work is often seen on the cover of National Geographic magazine. In 2007, he began the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS), his passion project to place cameras around the world and use time-lapse photography to document the retreat of glaciers. Chasing Ice documents Balog’s work with EIS as he conceives and begins to implement the project.

As a documentary film, the message in Chasing Ice is diluted. It is focused as much on Balog personally as on the importance of his work, and it is that work that is the real star. Visually, it makes a much larger impression to show mountains of ice disappearing within the span of six months and then demonstrate to the audience how ten years have seen a glacier recede as much as the previous century. This photographic work elevates an inconvenient truth to a terrifying fact.

Even more stunning than the photos, Balog’s team managed to film a calving event, where a portion of a glacier breaks off into the sea to become icebergs. It is rare enough to capture such an event on film, but the one seen here is miles long, enough ice to cover an area the size of Manhattan in 600 feet of glacier.  To see it moving and hear the rumbling is like watching the power of God at work, making Chasing Ice worthy of your attention.

Chasing Ice was directed by Jeff Orlowski and written by Mark Monroe.  You can catch it at three more screenings during SXSW.