Königreich Arktis

From National Geographic comes the beautiful documentary Arctic Tale, which follows a polar bear and walrus as they raise their babies. You'll only spend ninety minutes watching it, but the filmmakers spent fifteen years creating it, so make sure to appreciate all their hard work. You might be distracted by the cute animals and the beautiful scenery, but keep in mind this isn't a Hollywood movie with special effects to make the polar bears do whatever they want. Nature documentaries take an incredible amount of care, patience, and work.

Narrated by Queen Latifah, you'll see a polar bear mother and her two babies learning how to survive amidst the shrinking ice caps. In the good old days, it probably would have held audiences' attentions to merely focus on the cute white fuzzies, but as Queen Latifah so succinctly says in Last Holiday, "enough is never enough" and there's an parallel storyline to help those who get bored. A walrus mother and her little pup also struggle with the warmer water and longer swims between ice landings. This movie definitely promotes the message of climate change, and it doesn't shy away from teaching children the dangers of global warming. If you're not in the mood for something with such a tragic undertone, try renting March of the Penguins instead.

Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, one of the animals dies, and you might want to warn your child beforehand or skip the scene entirely.

The movie is all real, and based on 15 years of experience and observation in the Arctic. Everything in the movie has been fact checked in three separate sources by National Geographic, who demands strict scrutiny. The movie will make you laugh and cry. It educates and entertains. It is a fine story. Queen Latifah delivers her narration very straight. she is warm and funny. The movie is different then what your used to because it presents itself as a story, it reveals itself from the point of view of the animals like a story book. It does not stop the story to describe scientific facts and explanations, instead the facts and information are part of the story naturally. This allows the film to tell a story that involves it's audience, putting them into the here and now with the animals.

This movie is designed for young people and families. Just because it does not use scientific language that would clutter the beautiful imagery does not mean that the story is not authentic.

gather up some kids and go to Arctic tale. You will be moved by this movie.

"Arctic Tale" is a National Geographic nature documentary blown up to widescreen proportions. Exquisitely photographed by Adam Ravetch (who, along with Sarah Roberston, also served as co-director of the film), the movie follows the exploits of an adorable polar bear cub named Nanu and an equally irresistible baby walrus named Celia as they learn to cope and survive (with more than a little help from their mommies) in the harsh conditions of the Great White North.

Weaknesses first. "Arctic Tale" suffers from a failing common to many nature documentaries aimed at a general audience - namely the tendency to sanitize and whitewash some of the harsher realities of life in the wild to avoid offending the sensibilities of an often squeamish audience. We don't mind oohing and ahhing over a cuddly little bear, all bleary-eyed and squinty, finally emerging from the dark den of her childhood to the bright light of day - but being compelled to watch her tear some other poor defenseless creature to pieces in order to perpetuate her own survival would be something else again. Similarly, it's one thing to anthropomorphize an animal; it's quite another to do so on the level of a Disney cartoon (the animals here do just about everything but talk). Thus, not only do we get cutesy, folksy narration (voiced by Queen Latifah) that sounds as if it were written for an audience of restless first-graders (which it may very well have been) but a sappy theme song that sets a schmaltzy tone from the outset. The movie also goes in for such corny effects as playing "We Are Family" on the soundtrack as we're introduced to a tight knit community of sunbathing walruses - or treating us to a full-out flatulence contest among the members of that same group. For some reason, the movie seems to feel that we just wouldn't be all that interested in the lives of these creatures if we weren't somehow convinced that, underneath it all, they're JUST LIKE US.

Not that we aren't treated to the darker, kill-or-be-killed, survival-of-the-fittest side of nature as well, though rest assured the "kills" are kept at a discreet enough distance to avoid traumatizing the little ones - or even the more weak-stomached and fainthearted members of the adult audience, for that matter.

On the positive side, the movie makes a poignant case for the tremendous threat global warming poses to these wonderful creatures and offers proof positive as to just how quickly the rapidly-changing climate is shattering the fragile ecosystem that serves as their home. Ravetch manages to get his camera into amazing places, so much so that we often wonder just how genuine some of the "story" we are witnessing actually is (the movie was culled from over 800 hours of footage gathered over a period of fifteen years, not the mere twelve-month-long period the plot line would suggest).

Yet, if you can get past the pedestrian commentary, you'll find in "Arctic Tale" a visually stunning, frequently thrilling and occasionally heartbreaking story of struggle and survival, one filled with enough urgency and passion to get us up and over most of the teeth-gritting stuff.

In 2005, March of the Penguins brought us to the Antarctica, and introduced the life cycle of the emperor penguins to the mass audience. And Happy Feet was quick on its erm feet to seize the initiative and make an animated feature on our non-flying friends. Now, we journey to the opposite pole to visit Polar Bears and Walruses, but somehow, the former proved to be a logical choice for promotional posters. Having the worlds #1 brand use them in their advertisements, and as I recall one cheeky ad involving a bear shaving excess fur, you would have thought that this would make another documentary worth sitting through.

But Arctic Tale is not March of the Penguins. Narrated by Queen Latifah, it relied on similar themes and tactics in its narrative though, featuring the circle of life, and cute offsprings that you just want to cuddle (before they become big and aggressive enough to tear you apart), but apart from those, it's a totally different ball-game altogether. For starters, the focus on Walruses allowed some kind of parallels to be drawn with the Polar Bears, with the common starting point for both species, the threats that they both face in terms of survival, and how intertwined their lives are actually, because one is prey to the hunter.

It's amazing how the footage seen in the documentary were captured. As the end credits rolled, you do see stills on how up close and personal the filmmakers get to the action. But what amazed me more is how a story can be weaved from the footage shot, without being too contrived or artificial about it, despite relying on composite characters created. What I liked too is the observation on the animal species themselves. While the Polar Bears are more independent and don't hunt in packs, the actions of the Walruses, while they live as a community, do not demonstrate that they'll behave likewise when faced with a predator. Their all "man" for himself attitude do seem quite selfish, especially when a reliance on strength in numbers will probably help. But that's the way the circle of life rolls.

While it played out rather straightforwardly, what I thought was a missed opportunity was the very superficial glean on probably an important message these days - climate change, for the worse. With the rising temperatures, the polar caps are melting and shrinking, posing a direct challenge to the animals' habitat and a threat to their survival. The white, snow covered land mass they are living on, are slowly disappearing, and living off a grassland covered rock, doesn't seem to cut it, at least, not for the Polar Bears. Arctic Tale presents the effect of this change, but doesn't address the climate concerns.

Perhaps that's best left as a topic in itself. As far as Arctic Tale is concerned, it has presented and preserved, the way of life of the Polar Bears and Walruses. While not as compelling a story as March of the Penguins, it does serve its purpose, but nothing more. If compared, this one rates a notch lower.

On the land of the Arctic, animals have to fight the cold and lack of food. They hunt, nest and reproduce. We see the loving interaction and teaching skills between polar bear mothers and babies, and walrus mothers take good care of their babies. Global warming has caused baby polar bear Nanu to struggle to survive the lack of food, warning us to protect the environment and protect the homes of Arctic animals.