Not as impressive as they'd have you believe unfortunately...

Introduction

This is a bit of an oddity, this wildlife film claims to be a carbon neutral release. Not sure how they work out seeing as they must have travelled there to film by boat or plane, and were certainly filming using helicopters for some of the aerial shots at least. Maybe they canoed up the North Sea and Atlantic to the Arctic provinces or maybe they did the usual rock star trick of just planting a few trees to offset their travel carbon emissions and ease their consciences. Ah, who cares…

So what do we get with this film? We get a round year glimpse at the Arctic region from the frozen iced wastes that are mainly the domain of Polar Bears, though to the summer thaw when the Arctic teems with life as a myriad of different species are drawn to the region for a short period.



The main focus at the start of the film is a female Polar Bear and her two young cubs, we stay with them whilst they grow and then learn to hunt. We see some young seals and learn that they must adapt to their surroundings and then fend for themselves after just three weeks (wow…).

And we see some melting ice (oh noes!!!) and some sea life and some birds. Hurrah!

Visual

Some really nice wildlife photography that, to be fair, is pretty much standard for this genre. The picture is nice but not always as impressive as the hype would have you believe. On the other hand, there's a lot of great underwater shots and god, that sea looks cold…

Audio

Narration by Sven Eriksson (sans Goran or Nancy Dell'Olio) that is pretty sparse and explains very little; actually it probably would have been better if there was no narration at all, the script is pretty banal. Oddly, the film credits show Eriksson narrating whilst the Making Of and iMDB credits show it as Jean-Louis Étienne. Bruno Coulais' soundtrack is a little too ethereal for this film, being mainly choral/voice effects that just seem out of place.

Oddly, there appears to a subtitle track but there's nothing on it. Eh???? What's that all about?

Extras

Making Of - 25 minute piece that shows how they outfitted the helicopter and cinébulle, which is a hot air balloon with a fan-like motor attached, for the aerial shots plus some footage of the other crews and also touching on the creation of the soundtrack.



Making Of The Music - Much repeated from the actual film Making Of featurette, but with a bit more detail of the creation of the music using native and professional singers in Montreal. In truth the music seems more impressive when you see it being created than in juxtaposition with the images on screen, which is a bit sad really.

Interviews - lots of interviews with just about all the major crew players. In truth I found a lot of them dull, but they all knew what that they were doing and quite happy to talk about their experiences and expertise but unfortunately most of it didn't really come across that well.

Original Theatrical Trailer and Teaser Trailer

Overall

I'm not a huge wildlife fan, it must be said. I did quite like this as a spectacle but quickly realised that was a little flawed as a coherent piece. Aside from the big focus on the Lords of the Arctic at the beginning (the Polar Bears. Who else?), the majority of the rest of the film just seemed to be a montage of shots that were just edited together to elongate the whole thing. It doesn't help, as I say above, that the scripted narration is quite sparse and doesn't really tell you much either.

Also as a warning of what we could lose, this film fails abysmally. Yes, the ice melts, but it seems to do that every year. The same species head up to the North Pole every year for their family break, so really the melting ice is a good thing surely or all our beaches would overspill with feathered pests vying for the best sun lounger. The director is also adamant that this film is not a documentary, which is sad because that's exactly what this feels like and that seems to be what the editor had in mind according to his interview. Oops.



I would say that this was mainly aimed at the family and actually works that way overall, other than the sequences where the Polar Bears rip a young seal from under the snow and then rip it to bits, their young white coats smeared with blood, and also the sequence where the fox steals off with a bird egg. Not quite sure how parents will explain those away to young children - would have been better leaving those out I feel. Some of the footage is stunning, but as mentioned above, this genre showcases similar shots as standard so nothing really new here. On the other hand, you will still see things and wonder just how they managed to get that shot - the deep underwater shots are prime examples and some of those species look fascinating. Overall not enough to save it though from mediocrity though.

Nowhere near a definitive wildlife film, where's David Attenborough when you need him?