The expert cinematography of Arctic Tale captures an age-old tragicomedy with a new and unsettling twist. Ardent lovers, defiant youth, unmitigated kindness, and sex jostle with death, solitude, violent battles, and the turbulent upheaval of a mighty and ancient kingdom. The drama unfolds around a polar bear and a walrus—children of rival families in a strange and beautiful world of unicorned whales and a cold sun. What we as an audience do not see until the movie’s end is how intimately we are entwined in the plot.

The film makes no overt mention of global warming until the very end. By sidestepping the link between this phenomenon and mankind, the film smartly avoids the emotional recoil of those who still have difficulty coming to terms with our species’ influence on our environment. Rather than confront the issue from the human perspective, the film simply documents the dramatic effects of warming in the far North. Only after the film closes does the focus again return to the human world with suggestions about how each of us can reduce our impact on the climate.

Except for our role in climate change, the rest of the film is devoid of any human presence. The filmmakers are quite successful at documenting a world that is largely unknown to most people. They share some of the most intimate moments of the film’s protagonists. We are taken beneath the water to see Seela nursing at her mother’s belly and inside of a polar bear’s cave, where Nanu bears cubs of her own. If we judge the movie solely on the merit and skill of its documentary filmmakers, it lives up in every way to the masterpiece, March of the Penguins. Most of the soundtrack also sets a solitary, sentimental, almost indie feeling that is perfect for a film “at the edge of the world.”

However, instead of recreating the epic drama of March of the Penguins, this film was marketed toward a much younger audience. Queen Latifah’s playful, sassy narrating tone resonates with the “cute and cuddly” theme of the movie poster, which was clearly aimed at drawing parents and children. Those who come with the expectations seeing another March of the Penguins or An Inconvenient Truth may be disappointed to find a younger target demographic.

Still, making stories of the natural world accessible to children is perhaps the best way to instill in them the importance of caring about our impact on the environment. The success of theatricals like The Lion King and television stars like Jeff Corwin are hopeful signs that the genre of Nature-Adventure will soon open wide enough to appeal to audiences of all ages and backgrounds. By more regularly glimpsing the natural world, we are able in some sense to remember our part in it.

The magic of the movies is that we leave the theater feeling like the hero or the heroine of the film. As the credits roll and we stand up from our plush, popcorn-scented seats, we take with us the intrepid bravery of Indiana Jones or the humble tenacity of Frida Kahlo. But rarely do we leave the theater feeling like a polar bear or a walrus!

I left the theater on a chill, cloudy Seattle afternoon. The shifting of loose brick under my feet transported me back to the arctic, where thin ice was crumbling beneath thick paws.