The White Planet
The White Planet is a stunning visual array of the surprisingly intricate web of life that exists in the Earth’s northern-most region.
The directors have managed to some capture extraordinary footage, for instance, from within a makeshift cave dug out by a polar bear about to give birth, and of a seal hiding under the ice, from a predatory bear.
The camera goes underwater, too. We see the eerie sight of hair-like green algae clinging to the underside of fracturing ice plains; chinks of sunlight through chasms in ice-covered water, and a variety of gossamer-like, fluorescent-tinged sea life, floating through the dark waters.
We’re so accustomed to seeing land dwellers, that the sight of the strange wildlife that lives in the sea continue to amaze and surprise. You may even learn of sub-species you’d never heard of before.
The film can be viewed with the sound on (the voiceover provides some very interesting information), but once you’ve learnt all you can from the narrator, you can mute the soundtrack, and just take in the imagery.
Naturally, there are the inevitable hunting scenes, but they are not excessive. Nor are they overly gruesome. However, despite the film’s “G” rating, young children should really watch the film with an adult.
But it is a film that children should watch, especially given its ultimate message: of the importance of the Arctic region as a barometer for the state of health of the earth in general, and of the impact of global warming on our far-reaching environment and its inhabitants, with whom we have practically no interaction, but who rely on us for survival.