March of the Penguins Movie Review:


Hastened by a general shift itself immeasurably the byproduct of technological advances in cinema and television, a past innocence and capacity for wonder are dying if not gone. “The Conquest of Everest,” “The Silent World,” and Disney’s “Seal Island” and subsequent “True-Life Adventure” feature series would probably not stir the current rising generation.

Proof of the pudding followed the screening of “March of the Penguins/La Marche de l’empereur,” when a twenty-something-year-old pronounced Luc Jacquet’s Warner-National Geographic documentary “not very interesting” and two youngsters disbelieved adult assurances that no footage, not even below ice-covered Antarctic waters (by Patrick Marchand and François de Riberolles), had been artificially generated. How, one asks, is sensibility to the marvels and horrors of “true-life” again to compete with the Virtual Reality of graphics, special effects and stuntwork?

The film in question is not without flaws, and the unseen (except a few end-credit stills) exploits of the crew itself are perhaps the equal of the actual genetic survival story, but this is the sort of work that an older generation approves of and that parents will want their children to see and appreciate. Super-16mm cameramen Jérôme Maison and Laurent Chalet (and their equipment) endured thirteen months, without any possibility of sea or air evacuation, the same whiteouts, hundred-fifty-mph katabatic winds and -70°F temperatures, though minus predatory leopard seals, orcas, giant petrels and skuas, as their flightless aquatic bird subjects, the stately emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri).

The public has grown so accustomed to shallow, wisecracking, movie star-voiced, cartoonishly anthropomorphized animal characters, that the stoical, monkish-looking birds seem deceptively calm, hence “unexciting.” So it needs to be told that “in some ways this is a story of survival, of life over death. But it’s more than that: it’s a story of love,” in Morgan Freeman’s one-note reading of Jordan Roberts’ scripted narration. However low-key, the voice is a distraction, a sad emphasis on human parallels and a lack of confidence that an audience can be trusted to pick up on elemental, nearly soundless drama the way it once did with Flaherty’s pre-soundtrack “Nanook of the North.”

Alex Wurman’s not easily classifiable faintly jazz score provides the only accompaniment necessarily suitable for this stark tragedy-and-triumph saga of instinctual, cyclical renewal. With one single high-grain aurora australis, the backdrop is color-drained to a whitish-grey that shimmers blue, silhouetting the slow-stepping black pilgrim-cowled penguins with incongruous orange temple spots and pink underbeak slits. Conceived originally for television, the film had no script as such, for although what would happen was known beforehand, the how was incognito.

But if the actual instinctive mechanisms remain to be discovered, this penguin colony has likely followed the same migratory mating and chick-rearing rituals since the tropical continent drifted as far south as it could go and donned its two-to-three-mile ice cap. After frolicking and fattening up at sea for the summer months of January to March, the colony begins a long trek inland as winter approaches. At the inhospitable breeding grounds, dignified courtship takes place, and for the cycle the paired birds stay monogamous and self-sacrificing unto death for the single egg which is laid, the survival of which is foreseeably precarious.

The camera records the beautiful year’s length cycle, aided by the penguins’ Galapagos unfamiliarity with, and lack of fear of, man. In immemorial dance of life and hope, the protective stomach flap is raised and the egg transferred from atop the exhausted female’s feet to a similar spot on the male. Having each lost some twenty of her sixty pounds, the females start the dangerous, single-file, reverse walk to food in a sea now more distant due to new coastal ice, while, like seahorses, the males incubate the egg and fast for the four winter months until, after birth of the chicks, the mothers return.

Transferring the chick in the manner of the egg, the male instructs his own with a song-note for future family recognition and, half his own body weight gone, sets off on the seaward journey that will be repeated several times by each parent, until the surviving fledglings are old and strong enough to be left to find their own mysterious way to the shore.

Against this vast whiteness that strangely appears all horizontal with scant verticality, the elemental drama plays out annually. Amazing, but true. The story is quiet, but the process and mere fact of species survival is majestic, and so, again, the film would have benefited from less Homo sapiens voice and fewer humanizing judgments about “our tuxedoed friends”: the taciturn, stiff-feathered stars are perfectly capable of making it on their own.



Donald Levit

In one of the most inhospitable places on earth a journey is taken each year, and until now it was nearly impossible to see it happening. With remarkable dedication Luc Jacquet and a full film crew set up in Antarctica for thirteen months to watch the reproduction cycle of the emperor penguin. I am certain that there was enough happening with the crew to fill a documentary as well, but this film focuses entirely upon the birds, which live in the water all but the time they must leave in order to reproduce. March of the Penguins is a rewarding film, but the journey can be a slow and often difficult one to watch.

Beginning in March the penguins all begin to jump out of the water and start their journey. Perhaps one of the strangest and most beautiful images in the film is of the penguins as they journey to the breeding ground. They travel in a single file line, walking nearly the entire way, occasionally sliding on their belly. The area that they are traveling to is seventy miles from their starting point and it takes them nearly a week to get there. The reason for this particular spot is tradition, each year the same, but it is an apparent choice because of the slight shelter by mountains and thick ice as well. Once the penguins finally all reach the destination, they begin to pair off. There are less males than females, so some fights occur, but eventually they are paired off as best as possible.
This is only the beginning of the journey for these penguins. Even after the eggs are laid the journey is not near over. The egg is passed on to the male, because if the female doesn’t get back to the water to eat she will die of starvation, and so will the young penguin when it is born. As the young penguin is born the father and mother must continue to journey back and forth over the entire summer, providing food for themselves and their offspring.

There are so many elements that can harm the egg and the penguin in this journey, and nearly 80 percent of the young penguins do not even make it. If the mother is eaten by a predator and does not return, the bird dies. If the egg cracks in the horrible weather, all life within it is gone in seconds. The wind reaches 100 mph and the temperature is often –58 in the sun. There are so many ways that we must watch the penguins fail, it is both miraculous to see that some do survive and disheartening to have to watch the sadness of these amazing animals.

There is certainly nothing like this film, the grandeur and the humor is shocking at times, watching a world completely unlike anyone has seen before. The score by Alex Wurman trots along with the story, adding humor to the right moments and sentimentality when it is needed as well, complimenting the amazing photography of the natural habitats. This is definitely one of the most amazing stories in theaters this summer, although it isn’t the most action packed. It is a film which will take some patience, although it definitely promises great rewards.

Ryan Izay

Honestly, we know a documentary about penguins will be entertaining simply because they're so silly. And big-screen nature docs always look marvellous. So we're guaranteed an enjoyable 85 minutes, and this film certainly delivers that. Although it's not, actually, that exceptional.

The film charts the nine-month annual cycle of the emperor penguins of Antarctica, beginning with their 70-mile march from the sea to their mating grounds, then the torturous months as the males and females take turns caring for their chicks, while the other treks back to the sea for food. All in the most punishing winter on the planet. It's an astonishing side of nature--you wonder how a species could survive this kind of existence. And yet they seem almost happy about it.

And this is the filmmakers' first mistake. They anthropomorphise the penguins far too much, giving them hopes and dreams and love lives, but no sense of humour. Which is a ludicrous thing to do when the most delightful aspect of a penguin is its hilarious physicality. The narration is just far too po-faced, giving us lots of important information but missing the entire point of the experience: we want to laugh. (Apparently the original French version dramatises the tale, giving voices to the penguin characters.)

The second mistake is to sanitise everything, complete with slushy score (by Alex Wurman) and genteel voiceover (by Freeman), so even the few on-screen deaths are given a tragic nobility. By leaving out the muck, the film feels a bit fake. But that's not to say it's bad. The cinematography is absolutely stunning; the crew persistently tracked the penguins for more than a year, and their ability to get up close and personal is remarkable. (Stay for the making-of outtakes in the closing credits.)

This kind of documentary is thoroughly watchable because the subject matter is so engaging. Seeing these people-like birds tenaciously follow an essential but brutal rite of passage is fascinating. Chuckling at their ridiculous physicality is great fun. But if the filmmakers had tipped over into full-on comedy or poop-and-all nature, or maybe both, it could have been something unforgettable.

Rich Cline

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