March of the Penguins

I'm told that, in the original French version of this nature documentary, voice actors recorded penguin dialogue, that was then lined up with the photography to create a "narrative" that tied the story together. That sounds absolutely unbearably horrible. Who wants to watch real footage of an amazing natural phenomenon with some dumb screenwriter's idea of witty avian banter in the background?

Thank goodness, sense prevailed, and the American release includes absolutely no penguin blather. Instead, America's Favorite Narrator Morgan Freeman provides the voice-over, explaining the life cycle of the Emperor Penguin of Antarctica in detail, pausing frequently to anthropomorphize the animal and draw funny little comparisons to human behavior.

March of the Penguins is undoubtedly enjoyable to watch, and the instinctual process these birds take each year in order to procreate is intensely fascinating. Conservative "family values" groups hailed the movie earlier this year as a celebration of heterosexual, child-oriented monogamy found in nature, but I don't exactly think you should start taking behavioral cues from the Animal Kingdom. Praying Mantis mothers occasionally devour their newborns whole, which is a practice I'd say belongs in the Insect World exclusively.



I've heard that the filmmakers disagree with the conservative stance, and resent Americans assigning a political value to their celebration of survival in the harsh climate of the South Pole. That's all well and good, but I must say that the Freeman narrative invites such overreaching polemics. The film frustratingly insists on constantly assigning spiritual meaning to every movement of the penguin mating cycle.

Now, as I said before, the arduous nine-month journey these noble creatures undertake annually in order to mate is awe-inspiring, and beautifully captured by Luc Jacquet. The penguins leave the sea and march 70 miles over freezing ice, with no food, to get to their breeding grounds. There, they pair up over the course of several weeks, sometimes violently as the females far outnumber the males. Once the females lay the eggs, they shift them over to the males, then venture back to the sea to find food for their newborn.

The males then huddle together for warmth over the course of two harrowing winter months. The eggs hatch, and the mothers return from the sea to feed their young. Over the next several months, the parents trade off watching the chick and venturing to the sea for sustinance, until they both leave the chicks to their own devices, and the cycle begins anew.

If the film simply chronicled the lives of these birds, any number of wonderful insights into the peculiarities of the natural world could be made. I'd just rather not have all these specious conclusions stated to me in no uncertain terms by a certain beloved character actor.

In one sequence, a mother returns from the sea to discover her chick has frozen to death. Morgan explains to us that "the loss is unbearable." But it doesn't appear to be "unbearable." In fact, Mama Penguin bears the loss with classic penguin-like stoicism. She squaks for a moment over her dead young, and then toddles off, presumably back to the sea until next year when she will try again. So where does that "unbearable" part come in? Just because it's unbearable for a human female to lose a child?

In another sequence, two females are shown fighting over the right to mate with a single male, who stands idly by until the argument is over. Freeman notes, with bemusement, that in this way, penguin males are a lot like humans. Well har-de-goddamn-har.

The sad thing is, in place of all this sentimental, "oh they're just like humans" wannabe inspirational hooey, March of the Penguins could have provided valuable scientific information. I found myself thinking of several questions during the movie that no one ever bothers to answer. For example, what percentage of penguins successfully produce a live chick each year? Based on the movie, it appears that many, if not most, of the young die after a few months, if they even make it that far. I'd like to know if that's accurate.

Also, how many Emperor Penguins are there in the world today? Are they endangered? Is their lifecycle affected by man-made environmental conditions or pollution? How did they interact with the human film crews, or did they not even seem to notice the film crews? Just how long can a penguin go without food? (Some of the males have to go several months without eating while the eggs hatch).

One final issue...During an underwater sequence, when we see penguins hunting for food and being hunted by a leopard seal, there were a few shots that didn't look quite real to me. In that, I thought there might be some animated penguins mixed in with the real footage. But I shrugged this notion off immediately...This was, after all, a nature documentary, so they wouldn't fudge footage like that without some sort of disclaimer. Well, then I get to the end credits and see several credits for computer effects specialists. Now, I can't think of what other sequence might require computer effects. There's no inserted material or designed pieces during the movie - it's all nature footage.

Does the movie include CG penguins? I'm not sure (and a quick Internet search revealed nothing definitive). If that's true, and it's unacknowledged within the film, I'd consider it a pretty serious breach of trust. If I wanted to watch fake penguins walking around, I'd just pop in Batman Returns.

I can see why so many Americans fell in love with this movie this year. It's a stirring visual experience, and a vivid portrait of the strange lives of these weird little flightless birds. Plus, despite my complaints, I did learn a lot about penguins that I didn't know before. But I could have done without all that "this is a story about love" stuff. And not because I hate romantic movies. I just hate romantic movies about budget, oblong Antarctic fowl with brains the size of an Advil.