The march of the polar documentary gathers pace this month with the French release of "The White Planet," a panorama of life amid the Arctic wastes that follows hard on the heels of the Oscar triumph of the $110 million-grossing "March of the Penguins." "Planet," a vivid tableau of a world that, as the filmmakers note in their closing sequences, is under threat, should benefit from the breakthrough made by the earlier film, as should the upcoming "The Call of the North," also due for distribution by Paramount Classics. Displaying the same breathtakingly virtuoso camerawork, "Planet" differs from "Penguins" in that it covers the whole teeming wildlife of the region rather than focusing on a single species, developing two main narrative threads punctuated with a series of incidental subplots.

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