Ice And The Sky, film review: Oscar-winner Luc Jacquet returns

In 2006 he won an Academy Award for March of the Penguins, now he's back with another eco-themed documentary set in Antarctica

Luc Jacquet's new documentary Ice and the Sky

The latest eco-themed feature from Luc Jacquet (who won an Oscar for March of the Penguins) isn’t the typical polemical documentary about the perils of climate change. Jacquet comes at his subject by profiling the brilliant French scientist, adventurer and glaciologist Claude Lorius, who first visited Antarctica in the 1950s as a young man. Lorius devised a simple but ingenious way for measuring changes in the earth’s temperature. After having an epiphany while drinking whisky he diluted with lumps of Antarctic ice, he realised that, “Each air bubble clenched within the polar icefields was an air sample dating back to the time when it got caught in the ice.” These bubbles contained air dating back tens of thousands of years.

As he puts it, “Trapped in every layer of snow is the memory of the climate it was born in: tiny capsules of atmospheric fossils that have traversed time.” By analysing them, he could reveal “the history of the climate since the dawn of time”.

Lorius, now in his eighties, tells his story in his own words. In lithe, lyrical fashion, Jacquet combines archive footage of the scientist’s early trips to Antarctica with newly shot material. There are many surprises, among them Lorius’s stories about how closely US, Soviet and French scientists worked together, even at the height of the Cold War.

There’s a hint of Jack London about Lorius, who is an explorer as much a scientist. His gloom at how humans are altering the climate is balanced by his sense of awe at the secrets he uncovers.

Luc Jacquet, 90 mins