by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
A Rated G 90 min
Married documentary filmmakers Adam Ravetch and Sarah Robertson, who shot the wildly popular March of the Penguins, spent six frigid years shooting this film as a veiled commentary on global warming. To drive home their message, they followed a mother polar bear and her two cubs and, in a parallel story-line, a mother walrus with her one pup.
Adam and Sarah decided the best way to illustrate the arctic animals’ plight at facing the radically changing weather, was to show its dire effects on the animals’ life-cycle. They personalized their subjects so the audience would feel the animals’ pain at having to adapt to the longer summers, which delayed the freezing of the ice pack. Consequently, their subjects have to face conditions that make it much more difficult for them to find and catch prey.
During the film, the term “global warming” is never used. But with Queen Latifah’s soulful narration, and through the use of Adam and Sarah’s up-close-and-personal cinematography, the audience identifies with the animals’ life-and-death desperation. The idea was sound. If audiences see and feel the animals adapting to the changing conditions, then they will go home and join the Green Movement. In other words, there are real consequences to producing massive amounts of greenhouse gases, like excess amounts of carbon dioxide.
Thus, the mother polar bear and cubs, as well as the walrus and her pup, have names and the audience gets to know them as real characters in this real life drama. As the mother polar bear and her two cubs emerge from their den after six months of giving birth and hibernation, momma bear is hungry. But finding prey – mainly seals – is more difficult because the arctic ocean hasn’t frozen solid. So the bear family must improvise to find food and avoid their deadly enemy, male bears. As food becomes scarce, the babies get weaker. But they must keep moving and searching for food or the whole family will perish.
Meanwhile, in the walrus colony, the mother protects her cub from male bears, but the group is finding less and less ice flows on which to rest. They sense things are different, so the colony decides to swim more than 200 miles to a nearby island where they can rest and regroup. Ah, but a determined male bear has followed them and is lurking off the island to mount a sneak attack and grab the baby walrus. Desperate times require desperate measures. Instinct and hunger drive the motivations of these hearty arctic animals.
There are “aww” moments as well as tragedies and tearful scenes. But the overall focus is on the animals’ remarkable survival against all odds and how loving they are to their offspring and families. The walruses have especially close family bonds. The animal characters are endearing and more intelligent than anyone ever imagined. The drive to eat and survive are paramount in the minds of these creatures.
Queen Latifah was allowed to improvise and personalize her comments, which are funny and engaging. Of course, the bear cubs are adorable as they frolic in the snow. Mother bear teaches them how to hunt seals hiding under the ice by jumping up and down to snag them. The cubs make a game of it and even show their mom how good they are. But there is a sad moment when mother bear must send her only cub out into the cruel world. During the credits, kids give suggestions on how we can cut down on global warming by green practices. The film will make people remember the struggles of the arctic animals when they go about their daily routines and perhaps do something to help them by cutting down on their carbon footprint.
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EU Critic’s Choice Awards
