La Glace et Le Ciel

La glace et le ciel (int'l title: Ice and the Sky) is a disappointing film on many fronts, in spite of its Antarctic background: the most notable disappointment is that the film is a biopic, giving little by way of science, and focusing on idolising a glaciologist. It is not that a biopic is a bad idea: but it is a bad one when you make viewers expect that they are going to discover secrets and plunge into nature's mysteries; when the film is made in a heavily preachy style, with a continuous narration killing of any feeling of connection with the scientist or with science itself in spite of the extensive archival footage used; when the film uses a camera rotating for long periods of time around the glaciologist as the pivot; and when the whole film is just the story of a man's passion and struggles with nature but yet suddenly you are handed over an already-ripe conclusion that climate is changing for sure: but on what basis? Because the glaciologist tells you, with some ice cores thrust in suddenly to make that feel justified. But shouldn't that have been the whole point to develop, slowly and surely? There is a severe lack of science or philosophy or any kind of deep thought in the film: it is the complete opposite of the marvellously made The Expedition to the End of the World. A clue to how the film would be is right at the very beginning: an intense snow-white shot of Antarctica. A terrible way to begin a film which is about Antarctica anyway: wouldn't it have been better to start with a context-setting shot, which is neither a snowy landscape nor burning trees? Or, if a snowy landscape, then get it right and aesthetic? For cinematography is a major weakness in this film: something hard to believe for a film made in such a stunning locale.

The film though has its moments: notably with archival footage materials, especially that of the Charcot base. And the context being Antarctica, there will inevitably be moments where you start thinking and wondering, even though the film is too light on that and also says too much, is silent too little. In many ways, the film is very similar to the kind of films that the French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand makes: speaking too much, too often. Let the winds talk, let the coldness speak, let the snow fall, and float, softly: the special effects used sometimes in the film or the continuous narration can probably never be the voice of these elements. Such potentially great material, such great stories of human courage and will to fight and win, but such a waste: how is it possible to make a film on science that lacks in poetry? For isn't all science a most noble attempt of composing poetry?