Deep-freeze cheese

>> Polar documentary Arctic Tale is heavy on sentimentality and environmentalist nagging

by MALCOLM FRASER

National Geographic Films, clearly coveting some of the acclaim heaped upon March of the Penguins and An Inconvenient Truth, tries its hand at appealing to kiddies, nature-channel enthusiasts and environmentalists in one documentary gambit. Arctic Tale doubles as an animal biography, depicting a few years in the intersecting lives of young polar bears and walruses, and as a nagging reminder of the Arctic’s perilous plight.

Queen Latifah sacrifices the remaining scraps of her credibility, both street and otherwise, as a cornball narrator guiding us through the polar creatures’ lives and freely anthropomorphizing along the way. The heartstring-tugging moments of these lives—brushes with death, family separations and lots of cute rolling around—are all driven home with head-smashingly obvious musical cues. The music supervisor on this film deserves a stern reprimand, if not a smack upside the head. National Geographic must have spent their whole licensing budget on a long clip of “We Are Family” laid over images of a frolicking walrus herd, because the rest of the songs are shockingly awful wimpy-folk originals that actually comment on the onscreen action. When a third-rate Joni Mitchell impersonator warbles lyrics like “at the edge of the world, there’s a watery light,” you might think the film has stepped into parody, but it’s dead serious.

The film’s purpose is ultimately not so much to exploit cute animals as to raise ecological awareness (it’s even co-written by Al and Tipper’s daughter, Kristin Gore). The environmentalist message is poignantly conveyed with the imagery of the animals’ rapidly shrinking habitat. But when a bunch of cute kids spend the closing credits shilling for hybrid cars and fluorescent light bulbs, the message becomes a bit nauseating.

All this criticism aside, the film does feature some amazing images—a herd of narwhals thrusting their horns skyward; a polar bear mother teaching her kids how to break through the ice to chomp on baby seals; a surprisingly romantic walrus make-out session—and a lot of fascinating information on how the arctic creatures live their lives. Plus, it’s somewhat relieving to see children’s entertainment bereft of digital enhancement and roller-coaster pacing. But the heavy cheese quotient might make you long for the days of Hinterland Who’s Who.

Arctic Tale opens this
Friday, Aug. 17

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