March of the Penguins Review
by Stephen Bourne (ap291 AT FreeNet DOT Carleton DOT CA)August 8th, 2005
March of the Penguins
Reviewed by Stephen Bourne, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
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Synopsis:
Antarctica wasn't always a glacial desert scarred by icy winds that petrify this land of deadly solitude. Thousands of years ago, it was a lush tropical forest. Full of life, before the continents shifted and the inhabitants of this polar mass either left or died from the cold that had destroyed their paradise. However, it's believed that one tribe stayed. Whether it was their stubbornness, or a belief that the sudden drop in temperature was temporary, the Emperor Penguin still makes the annual migration from his home in the Southern Seas to the ancient breeding grounds nestled seventy miles inland. It's a pilgrimage made on foot for this flightless bird, as their long meandering caravan marches single file towards that distant destination of convergence to find a mate and to create new life. This is a story of love. For Centuries, the Emperor Penguin has been draw to this remote and desolate place, miraculously finding it across the shifting ice that erases all familiar landmarks, as though navigating its terrain by the sun or the stars or by some powerful unseen force. This vast canyon is where their own life began. For those who have just matured, this will be their first step into parenthood. For others, this might be their last. After an intricate ritual of gestures and calls, each female will find their one true partner. The number of males has always been fewer, so her choice is a delicate process that sometimes erupts into a contest against other females vying for a suitable mate. The males don't seem to mind, preening themselves until a decision is finally made. As the dwindling May sun's light trickles across their silvery dark grey plumage, an air of immediacy blankets this pool of loosely huddled black and white coloured bodies bracing for the harsh Southern Hemispheric winter that looms on the frozen horizon. A single fragile egg is the result of their brief coupling, and each pair carefully practice the age old dance that will transfer their unborn chick from the warmth of its mother's belly to be incubated by its father for the next two long and gruelling months against the elements that can kill within seconds. Both are fatigued and hungry, but it's the mother who must first make the arduous journey back to the sea to rebuild her diminished body weight. She must leave her young with the male she has chosen. She must trust that he will protect their baby and keep it from harm's way until she can return to see her newborn hatchling for the first time.
Review:
One thing immediately becomes apparent while sitting through this oftentimes desperately boring eighty-five minute documentary from debuting French writer/director Luc Jacquet narrated in this version by Morgan Freeman. That is, the Emperor Penguin - the largest of this flightless monochromatic family of aquatic birds, typically growing to four feet tall and having a reported lifespan of approximately twenty years - has really, really ugly scaly feet. However, the most noticeably aggravating aspect of 'La marche de l'empereur' (its original title) is in how Freeman's flighty, unnecessary narrative attempts to relentlessly wax poetic about this otherwise magnificent, mostly docile creature, while the film leads a paying audience down a rosy path of nature as comforting allegory for moral human values. They're called a tribe here. Creepy. You're told that Emperor Penguins are monogamous during and after mating season. That their entire existence revolves around feeding deep underwater, retracing their arduous migration on foot, and enduring harsh sub-zero climate for the sole purpose of breeding as soon as they reach adulthood at age five. You see them wait for each other for months at a time, sticking to rules learned by rote or perish. Both parents take turns in raising and somewhat protecting their single offspring while one or the other adult returns to the icy sea to fill its empty gullet because penguins haven't invented picnic baskets or anchovy pizza delivery or ice drilling tools - yet. Jacquet's need to overtly anthropomorphize these live untamed animals leads you to believe they're possibly capable of such advancements after thousands of years of waddling to and from their ancient Antarctic breeding grounds and shivering against the frigid wilderness with an egg or newborn coddled between their legs, but the simple reality is that they're just big dumb birds with shrimpy wings. And, very ugly feet that you're forced to look at close-ups of a lot. Yes, I'll admit that I was skeptical about this surprisingly acclaimed, ultimately artsy turkey before going in. Not so much because it basically looks like a prolonged updated television special from one of its co-production companies, National Geographic, but because I'd read that the screenplay was based on a story by its writer/director. Screenplay? Story? uh. They're penguins. How much of a script do you need before pointing a camera at them, Luc? It seemed pretentious. It is pretentious, where boredom quickly settles in soon after the opening credits that pan across yet another iceberg that looks a lot like the last dozen shown under differing sunlight, and you end up hoping to hear someone off-camera quickly whisper, "Okay, release the penguin-eating things on my mark," Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom-style, just to kick start the slothful pacing. You eventually see one Leopard Seal and one unnamed predatory bird suddenly appear, attack and vanish here. You see one chick that wandered off during a blizzard lay frozen dead, because Little Billy Penguin didn't heed his doting mother's warning. I'm not saying they don't have feelings. However, it's almost ecclesiastic as presented here, all neatly sanitized, humanized and veiled in stern dogma, scored with heartstring arousing music for easy consumption by its intended pandered crowd. Yeesh. Quite frankly, 'March of the Penguins' (its North American title) made me feel as though I was reliving a screening held in my old Public School Biology class that I'd already slept through most of once already, so I'd say that unless you're an avid theatre seat eco-tourist - or you really need a reminder to check your own toenails more often - you're probably better off straying from the flock and veering clear of this reportedly popular yet strange and largely unimpressive cinematic bird.
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