Review: ‘Antarctic Edge’ follows scientists grappling with climate change
“Antarctic Edge: 70 Degrees South” plays like an Imax film minus the giant screen, compellingly following oceanographic scientists as they grapple with the escalating effects of climate change in this winter-warming location.
For the dedicated participants in the National Science Foundation’s Long-Term Ecological Research Project, or, as one member more informally refers to it, “summer camp for nerds,” time is of the essence as rising sea levels and glacial melting are dramatically changing the ecosystem.
Their efforts to gauge that effect on the food supply, particularly in regard to the rapidly declining Adélie penguin population on Charcot Island, are intimately and vividly documented by filmmaker Dena Seidel and cinematographer Christopher Linder.
Combining those stirringly shot vistas with easy-to-digest scientific fact-finding, the documentary is not so much a call to action as a moving portrait of individuals who devote their lives to understanding the environmental shifts that all too soon might manifest themselves on our own altered shorelines.
---------------------
“Antarctic Edge: 70 Degrees South.”
No MPAA rating.
Running time: 1 hour, 12 minutes.
Playing: Laemmle’s Music Hall 3, Beverly Hills.
Only good movies
Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
