User Reviews

National Geographic looks into the world of the Inuit and their struggle to maintain their culture in the modern world. Their land is divided between Canada and Denmark. Their environment is deteriorating. The world is looking towards them with hungry eyes as a new trade route and new resources are uncovered by the melting ice. It's a very compelling piece of the world and the people's plight is heartbreaking. The two younger subjects have such personal trauma. They are so very few and the world is so powerful. They are the definition of an underdog.

This was a beautiful documentary. Difficult to watch, and incredibly disheartening at times. But nothing short of beautiful. I don't know why it has so few reviews both from users and critics. If it never had a chance to reach wider audiences at festivals, that's a huge shame.

This beautifully filmed documentary offers a compelling portrait of an indigenous Inuit people confronting the disappearance of the environment where they have lived for millennia, the section of oceanic ice that stretches between Greenland and Canada.

We encounter this ice realm mostly through the eyes of a young man who left it as a child to live in Denmark through his youth and returned as a young adult. He finds himself having to relearn the hunting culture of the Nunavut, which captivates him for the deep knowledge and skills the older men still retain. He is dedicated to learning the ways and insights of these experienced hunters, who have unique knowledge of the ice and its wildlife. But with global warming, their skills and wisdom are faltering in a melting world. As the ice thins and disappears, open ocean cuts off coastal communities from each other, makes some traditional hunting grounds unreachable and creates dangerously thin ice where they risk losing sleds and dogs.

Vintage footage from the 1950s is spliced in to fill out the modern history of the Nunavut, including their forced settlement by white authorities that ended their nomadic life, and that common horror - the forced removal of their children to the bleak and abusive Catholic schools that were established to strip them of their language and culture. Without any heavy handed preaching, the connection is clearly made to the threat they face now from the global impact of that same "white" culture. The connection is further illuminated by the experience of a young woman who also left and returned and is beginning to realize how alienation from her people left her feeling lost as a person.

In portraying all this, the film is pensive and somber. But it is illuminated by the stunning beauty of the ice, which sensitive film direction and exquisite cinematography shows as having a poetic, transcendental quality, and by the Nunavut people, who are moving and inspiring in their efforts to retain, and personally regain, their culture while facing an uncertain future.

In chronicling this pivotal period, as global forces literally dissolve an ancient landscape forever, this film is one of the must-see nature films of recent years.

Amazing images from the blue and wonderful Arctic. Close and personal look into the lives of the Inuits that are impacted by the greed and speed of the world around them.

Beautiful shot and edited with a honest message everyone should know.

We will look back at images and stories like this wondering why we didn't react, how we could waste it all with our eyes open.

A moving, deeply touching documentary on a beautiful, tenacious, and resilient people that will easily lead it's viewers to tears. Not just tears of sorrow, but of joy, of relief, of gratitude and of amazement.

Hope. Seeing a resurfacing of light when at one moment in time you thought perhaps you'd never see it again. This film reminded me of what it feels like to experience such beautiful moments. A truly beautiful film. Well done.