Winged Migration: Movie Review (2008)

Directed by Jacques Perrin, written by Stephane Durand and Perrin, 89 minutes, rated G.

Jacques Perrin’s “Winged Migration”--a documentary, of sorts, about the migration of nearly two dozen species of birds--is outstanding, an Academy Award-nominated effort from the director of 1996’s “Microcosmos” that offers something for all audiences, not just those who love birds.

Shot over the course of fours years on all seven continents by a crew of 450, including 14 cinematographers and 17 pilots flying anything from hot-air balloons to custom-designed airplanes, the film is filled with scenes of such breathtaking awe and stomach-turning chills, it easily could go head-to-head with the best of any season’s Pentium-charged lot.

To be sure, for sheer kicks, it’s tough to match the showy hustle of the grater sage grouse, which could be called the Mae West of the birdworld. Likewise, you’d be hard pressed to find a scene more haunting than “Migration’s” scores of rock crabs overcoming a bird with a broken wing and then methodically plucking it bare. It’s as if Hitchcock, standing just offscreen, were encouraging them.

For the most part, it’s capturing beauty--not death--that “Migration” has on its mind. With only the briefest of narration given by Perrin, the film provides the ultimate bird’s-eye-view, soaring alongside these birds--which were trained from birth to accept Perrin and his crew--as they sweep the globe in search of food.

Aligned in symmetry, their necks extended like exclamation points, they are driven to destinations that can span an astonishing 12,500 miles, as is the case with the arctic tern, which somehow travels twice a year from the Arctic to Antarctica.

It’s that often perilous journey, boosted by the world as its backdrop and hindered at seemingly every turn by man and his quest to hunt or destroy the environment, that makes “Winged Migration” a must see.

Grade: A