March of the Penguins: Movie & Review (2005)

8/28/2007 Posted by Admin

A stellar tale of life, and death

Not made for flying, not particularly well made for walking, the emperor penguins of the Antarctic are awkwardly built, their rotund heft, stunted limbs and gnarled feet creating a curious waddle that's at once comical and endearing.

It's only when they swim in the freezing waters of the Antarctic that these beautiful creatures realize a ballet of physical release that seems beyond their capabilities.

There, in the electric blue of a faraway deep, they become tuxedoed missiles - as slick as dolphins, as graceful as seals, faster than you could imagine, able to dart with ease to the feast of fish that fret along the fringes of the icebergs that sustain them.

Still, on land, where these penguins spend most of their lives, they are designed in ways that appear completely wrong for the process that takes up so much of their lives - breeding.

Pegged to a life of almost impossible difficulty, these driven, nearly 4-foot-tall birds must walk more than 70 miles through the most treacherous terrain and weather in order to come to a place in which they feel safe to hatch their chicks.

And then, to find food, they must walk those 70 miles again. And again. And again. Meanwhile, starvation is a thief that has its way with them.

It's this moving journey - the lives that spring from it, those that fall because of it - that is the focus of Luc Jacquet's excellent, often harrowing documentary, "March of the Penguins. "It's one of the finest films of the summer and likely a contender for Best Documentary when the Academy nominates next February.

Narrated by Morgan Freeman in a knowing voice that delivers the highs and lows of this journey without a trace of excitement - respect is what he achieves - the film is being billed as a love story, which it is. "Like most love stories, it's about an act of utter foolishness," Freeman says, referring to the lengths in which these birds will go to ensure the survival of their young.

Sadly, some won't survive.

Following the penguins over the course of a year, director Jacquet chronicles a quest that finds the birds facing death daily in an effort to sustain life. If that sounds ironic, nature and instinct could care less. Bonded by this native pull, the birds - thousands of them - push through a sort of hell in which the temperature averages 58 degrees below zero. And that's without the wind chill.

Blizzards strike. Water is sparse, but for the resourceful bird, it can be found after the storms in pellets of snow. When the exhausted females leave for the ocean to find food, the males are left behind for two months to balance the egg on their hooked feet. Huddled together for warmth, a fold of their belly fat protecting the egg from the elements, they must somehow keep moving lest they freeze themselves.

There is no food for them, just patience, hardship, endurance. Should the egg touch the frozen surface, it will freeze in seconds and life will be lost. And so they can't drop it - though some accidentally do. It's the wail of disappointment and grief that rings from their throats that binds us to them - just as it does when the females return to either see their hatched chicks for the first time, or to realize that in their absence, their mate failed to keep the egg safe.

In the Antarctic, where the southern lights weave through the skies like hallucinogenic ribbons, the emperor penguins endure.

Grade: A