NMTE Movie Review: Arc of the Penguins
After a full week of cinematic anxiety—a volatile combination of frustrated anger at paying to see Charlie and the Shit Factory last week, dismay for not choosing The Wedding Crashers instead, guilt for ignoring Sundance love child Hustle and Flow, and fear of being dragged in to see Michael Bay’s epic crapfest The Island—it was really good to get back to the theatre and see March of the Penguins on Sunday night. Granted, we’re not talking about Chinatown here, but for my ten bucks, this is the kinda entertainment I’m looking for. I’ll try to break this down as scientifically as possible, but time is short and I wanna go home and I feel like I’m gonna have more to say about this throughout the summer (and hopefully around Oscar time) anyway.
Narrated by Morgan Freeman, the film follows the grueling journey that emperor penguins annually endure in order to mate, feed and bring a newborn penguin into the world. It begins with the emperor penguins’ autumn trek from their feeding ground in the ocean to what has been called the coldest spot in the world, a preordained patch of extremely thick ice where the emperors have come for generations for one purpose: to mate and raise their young. It follows the delicate process by which the eggs, after being laid, are transferred from atop the talons of the mother to those of the father in order to protect the egg from the fierce cold of the Antarctic ground so that the mothers can go feed in the ocean, some 70 miles away. We see the father penguins, clumped together in a communal warming ritual like none other in nature, endure temperatures up to 80 degrees below zero and 100 mph winds to keep their chicks alive and warm. And then as the cold dark winter wanes, we see the birth of the chicks, the return of the mothers (with food for the chicks) and the reunification of the penguin families and the continuation of the miraculous and wearisome life cycle of the bird called emperor.
The highlights of the film are too numerous to list, but I guess I’ll endeavor to do just that:
-The film’s namesake, the continual marching of the emperors to and from the sea to feed and bring food back for their young, is a real spectacle to behold. Just a solid line of what looks like, from afar, thousands upon thousands of little men bundled up in tight-fitting black jackets, waddling through the harshest environmental wasteland on the planet in single file.
-Some really breathtaking underwater shots, beneath the cover of ice, showing the female penguins feeding and being fed on by lion seals. Some of the most amazing footage I’ve ever seen—and 100% authentic, as far as I could tell (see below).
-The baby penguins, suffice it to say, were kinda cute. Pokin’ their little beaks outta their little eggs, stickin’ their little heads out from under their parents’ bellies, toddlin’ around on their little legs and fallin’ over and squawkin’ at each other. Hard to resist baby penguins, folks.
Sure, it was a highly romanticized, humanized and dramatized, adding human emotions like love and commitment to a species that chooses a new mate every year. Sure it was a bit simplistic at times, lingering on artsy close-ups of feathers or eggs. Sure it was overly demonstrative at times, focusing on lost or mishandled eggs that freeze in a matter of moments and the resulting “emotions” of the parents.
But eff that ess. Every documentary is subjective, trying to convince the audience that the reality they are seeing is indicative of the story the filmmaker is trying to tell. March of the Penguins does this in a wholly unassuming and seamless fashion that will appeal to kids, parents and tuxedo fetishists alike.
Quick story to end this: While standing at the urinal on the way out of the theatre, I heard some guy ask another guy if he thought the penguins were fake. I laughed, then the second guy said something about how they all looked pretty real “except for the long shots and the underwater stuff.” WTF? It’s a documentary, idiots! The aerial photography was all done by National Geographic (also producers on the movie) and features some of the most amazing footage ever produced on film! Tens of thousands of emperor penguins, some of the most majestic (and well-dressed) looking creatures on the planet, all embarking on parallel treks towards the same ultimate goal: survival of the species! And these sad sacks think it’s CGI!
Damn you, Lucas! It’s all your fault!
Narrated by Morgan Freeman, the film follows the grueling journey that emperor penguins annually endure in order to mate, feed and bring a newborn penguin into the world. It begins with the emperor penguins’ autumn trek from their feeding ground in the ocean to what has been called the coldest spot in the world, a preordained patch of extremely thick ice where the emperors have come for generations for one purpose: to mate and raise their young. It follows the delicate process by which the eggs, after being laid, are transferred from atop the talons of the mother to those of the father in order to protect the egg from the fierce cold of the Antarctic ground so that the mothers can go feed in the ocean, some 70 miles away. We see the father penguins, clumped together in a communal warming ritual like none other in nature, endure temperatures up to 80 degrees below zero and 100 mph winds to keep their chicks alive and warm. And then as the cold dark winter wanes, we see the birth of the chicks, the return of the mothers (with food for the chicks) and the reunification of the penguin families and the continuation of the miraculous and wearisome life cycle of the bird called emperor.
The highlights of the film are too numerous to list, but I guess I’ll endeavor to do just that:
-The film’s namesake, the continual marching of the emperors to and from the sea to feed and bring food back for their young, is a real spectacle to behold. Just a solid line of what looks like, from afar, thousands upon thousands of little men bundled up in tight-fitting black jackets, waddling through the harshest environmental wasteland on the planet in single file.
-Some really breathtaking underwater shots, beneath the cover of ice, showing the female penguins feeding and being fed on by lion seals. Some of the most amazing footage I’ve ever seen—and 100% authentic, as far as I could tell (see below).
-The baby penguins, suffice it to say, were kinda cute. Pokin’ their little beaks outta their little eggs, stickin’ their little heads out from under their parents’ bellies, toddlin’ around on their little legs and fallin’ over and squawkin’ at each other. Hard to resist baby penguins, folks.
Sure, it was a highly romanticized, humanized and dramatized, adding human emotions like love and commitment to a species that chooses a new mate every year. Sure it was a bit simplistic at times, lingering on artsy close-ups of feathers or eggs. Sure it was overly demonstrative at times, focusing on lost or mishandled eggs that freeze in a matter of moments and the resulting “emotions” of the parents.
But eff that ess. Every documentary is subjective, trying to convince the audience that the reality they are seeing is indicative of the story the filmmaker is trying to tell. March of the Penguins does this in a wholly unassuming and seamless fashion that will appeal to kids, parents and tuxedo fetishists alike.
Quick story to end this: While standing at the urinal on the way out of the theatre, I heard some guy ask another guy if he thought the penguins were fake. I laughed, then the second guy said something about how they all looked pretty real “except for the long shots and the underwater stuff.” WTF? It’s a documentary, idiots! The aerial photography was all done by National Geographic (also producers on the movie) and features some of the most amazing footage ever produced on film! Tens of thousands of emperor penguins, some of the most majestic (and well-dressed) looking creatures on the planet, all embarking on parallel treks towards the same ultimate goal: survival of the species! And these sad sacks think it’s CGI!
Damn you, Lucas! It’s all your fault!
posted by bd @ 7/25/2005 07:15:00 PM
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