Film Review: March of the Penguins (dir. L. Jacquet, 2005)

Saw this movie last night at the E Street Cinema downtown, which is walking distance from the new place. If you have a chance to see it on a big screen, do so. The shots of frozen Antarctica are really amazing.

For those of you unfamiliar with the movie, it's originally a French documentary, narrated in English by Morgan Freeman, on the unusual breeding patterns of emperor penguins. Emperor penguins breed all at once in an isolated section of the French part of Antarctica; it's about 70 miles from the ocean, which makes it safe from many forms of predators but a very long walk on a penguin's stubby little legs. Once the male and female mate, the female produces an egg, which cannot sit on the ice for more than a few seconds or it will freeze. (This is during the winter in Antarctica.) The female passes the egg to the male; if successful (i.e., if the egg doesn't get frozen), the male will hold the egg, on top of its claws, for weeks while the female returns to the ocean to feed. The males huddle for warmth against winter storms in Antarctica, holding their eggs on their feet, waiting for their mates to return, bellies full, to take the newly hatched chicks into their charge. Then the males walk back to the ocean to feed, and so on, until after about nine months, the chicks are big enough to fend for themselves and thus both parents return to the ocean.

An amazing demonstration of the cruel beauty of nature. These birds have it tough. It's hard to walk all that way; it's hard to transfer the egg (a few are shown cracking from the cold); it's hard to keep the chicks alive; the leopard seals are waiting for the parents (and chicks) when they return to the ocean. But the cycles of life continue, even in what the narration calls "the harshest place on earth."

I wasn't sure about some of the anthropomorphizing going on in the film. For example, the narration stresses that this is an act of "love." Maybe, but I don't know how we know what penguins feel. Now it's hard, watching the film, not to infer almost-human emotions to these penguins. But they are penguins, after all. Maybe a little anthropomorphizing, for filmmaking purposes, is OK. It makes for a better story, in any case.

I'm hoping that either the National Geographic channel will show or the DVD will include a "making of" documentary. There were some scenes in the closing credits of the filmmakers at work, but I would be interested in how one makes such a documentary in such a place.

Highly recommended.