The payoff is relative and internal.
Ice People (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:7
Fresh:6
Rotten:1
Average Rating:6.3/10
Runtime: 77 mins
Genre: Education/General Interest
Synopsis:
Unique in the genre of exploration and adventure films, Ice People takes you on one of the earth’s most seductive journeys -- Antarctica. Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Anne Aghion spent four...
Unique in the genre of exploration and adventure films, Ice People takes you on one of the earth’s most seductive journeys -- Antarctica. Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Anne Aghion spent four months “on the ice” with modern-day polar explorers, to find out what drives dedicated researchers to leave the world behind in pursuit of science, and to capture the true experience of living and working in this extreme environment. And, as it turns out, the film also witnesses one of the most significant discoveries about climate change in recent Antarctic science.
Intense public focus on climate change has turned the shores of Antarctica into a new tourist mecca, making the earth’s coldest continent the hot place to be. But, inland from the penguins and ice floes is a magical Antarctica of volcanoes, boulder-strewn valleys and ominous glaciers. Only a small number of scientific research teams get there, braving severe conditions to learn about our planet’s history, and make predictions about our future.
Ice People heads out into the “deep field” with noted geologists Allan Ashworth and Adam Lewis, and two undergrad scientists-in-the-making, where they scour across hundreds of miles to find tiny, critical signs of ancient life. Their findings would give the first evidence of a green Antarctica over 14 million years ago, that disappeared with a sudden shift in the temperature of the continent.
The most authentic film about life on the ice since the trailblazing expeditions to Antarctica chronicled nearly a century ago, Ice People conveys the vast beauty, the claustrophobia, the excitement and the stillness of an experience set to nature’s rhythm. --© Official Site
Director: Anne Aghion
Director: Anne Aghion
Screenwriter: Anne Aghion
Studio: Milestone Films
Reviews for Ice People
The film's hesitation, lack of rhetorical inflation and commitment to humble observation generate a tough poetry. Ice People sticks in the mind.
An intriguing, focused and often captivating documentary filled with stunningly beautiful cinematography of the Antarctic landscape.
The director, Anne Aghion, likes to fill the screen with the kinds of lonely landscapes that David Lean once used to suggest another kind of desert.
With its lack of narration and subjective distance, the film is a uniquely meditative, psychological portrait of individuals who approach scientific exploration with the passion and fervor of artists.
In this painstaking, body-numbing work, finding one perfect leaf fossil is a palpable thrill.
Small moments of beauty -- a helicopter landing in a self-created snowstorm -- don't compensate for the overall dullness.
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