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Arctic Tale (2007) DVD Review
Arctic Tale (2007) DVD Credits:
Arctic Tale (2007) Directed by:
Sarah Robertson, Adam Ravetch
Arctic Tale (2007) Written by:
Linda Woolverton, Mose Richards, Kristin Gore
Arctic Tale (2007) Cast:
Queen Latifah (narrator)
Arctic Tale (2007) Released by:
Not available at this time
Region:
1
Arctic Tale (2007) DVD Release Date:
4th December 2007
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Arctic Tale (2007) Synopsis:

From National Geographic Films, the producers that brought you "March of the Penguins" and Paramount Vantage, the studio that brought you "An Inconvenient Truth," "Artic Tale" is an epic adventure that explores the vast world of the Great North. The film follows the walrus, Seela and the polar bear, Nanu, on their journey from birth to adolescence to maturity and parenthood in the frozen Arctic wilderness. Once a perpetual winter wonderland of snow and ice, the walrus and the polar bear are losing their beautiful icebound world as it melts from underneath them. Narrated by Queen Latifah, the film features music from Cat Stevens, Ben Harper, Aimee Mann, and The Shins.

Arctic Tale (2007) DVD Review:

Arctic Tale is the beautifully true story that follows the first three years of Nanu’s, a polar bear cub, and Seele’s, a walrus pup, lives as they struggle to survive due to global warming’s rapid decay on the glaciers. The scenery is breathtaking and the intimacy between the camera and the animals quickly forms an attachment between the audience and the families.

Queen Latifah’s narration throughout the film is a wonderful finishing touch, adding informative facts and getting inside the animals’ minds with a realistic flavor, softening the documentary feel, making the film seem like a fictional story.

The main focus of the film was on the lives of Nanu and Seela, and how they are raised to survive on their own. Because the ice didn’t freeze completely due to global warming, both animals struggled for their lives. Nanu couldn’t find food and Seela and her herd couldn’t find and ice slab strong enough to support them. The aspect of the film that is most affective is that it doesn’t harp on the “global warming”-in fact, the phrase “global warming” is never mentioned. The tragedy in Nanu’s and Seela’s lives is clearly because of the melting ice, and the tragedy is more intense and emotionally affective when the audience observes the struggle, knowing the cause and knowing that the animals are unaware of the problem that is affecting them.

“The Making of Arctic Tale” is a fascinating featurette that takes the audience through the fifteen years of work that husband and wife directing team Adam Ravetch and Sarah Robertson puts into the film. Through interviews and unused footage, the viewers are invited to experience the Arctic from a human’s perceptive, instead of an animal’s, as in the film. Ravetch tells his filming secrets of how he was able to become so intimate with the animals. By attaching a camera to the end of a pole or a paddle, he was able to film Seela and her herd by boating alongside their swim. Some of the underwater shots were created by a shark cage that was built for Ravetch. He was secured in the cage and filmed the sea creatures underwater, pulling on a chain when he needed to be removed from the cage. Ravetch tells of how he literally swam alongside walruses and caught a mother nursing her pup on film, and this heartwarming footage is shown in the featurette.

Ravetch and Robertson told of the weather conditions in the Arctic, and how there would be only two good filming days in a month; therefore four or five years would be required for a few weeks of filming. The two cinematographers were not expecting to film a documentary when they started out; they were merely interested in the Arctic. After they began work on their film, it took four years to find a newborn walrus to film as Seela.

The film begins with an appreciative tone, looking at new life and the circle of life as a beautiful phenomenon. Once their lives are turned upside down, the point of view turns to dark and grim, and the entire life cycle is shown to be real; the audience feels responsible for the deaths of the walrus and polar bear without the guilt explicitly expressed. The end of the film returns to an optimistic outlook, for both Nanu and Seela have newborns of their own. However, as will all innocence, once the truth has been exposed, the perfect image never truly returns to the way it was.

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Arctic Tale (2007) DVD review written by: Eh-Eh Plotkin

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