Emperor Visually Stunning Document

The crazy thing about Luc Jacquet’s National Geographic Feature Films documentary “March of the Penguins (La Marche de l’Empereur)” is that I learned more about Emperor Penguins and their lifecycle from the production notes than I did from the picture itself. The even crazier thing is I don’t really care. Jacquet’s lushly photographed document is visually stirring and unlike anything else I’ve seen this year. Like “Winged Migration” before it, “March of the Penguins” is a sparklingly unique ocular bonanza, it’s just missing the educational underpinnings which made that previous documentary such an unabashed joy.

Still, this is a remarkable undertaking. Jacquet and his crew spent 13 months filming the mating cycle of the Emperor Penguin within their native habitat, roughing out the tempestuous Antarctican winter like cosmonauts stranded on an unexplored planet prone to the worst and most dangerous kinds of weather-related phenomenon imaginable. What they photographed is one of the single most astounding evolutionary marvels nature has ever put together, the lengths these penguins go to ensure their survival astonishing.

How astonishing? First, at the very start of winter the penguins emerge from the sea and proceed to march nonstop over 70 miles inland to the very same breeding grounds they and their ancestors have mated in for thousands of years. The only living thing to make their homes year-round in the Antarctic, they will make this journey purely on instinct, the landscape around them ever-changing and rarely the same one year to the next. Once there an intricate courtship ensues, males and females alike strutting around to find the perfect companion they will then monogamously mate with for the remainder of the winter. When finished, they will then face, as a clan, the harshest winter on Earth, thousands of Emperor Penguins banding together as one to see their species’ survival.

It is with the coming of the egg that things really get interesting. From its arrival onward, the male and female penguins will alternate protecting both it and the chick will hatch from it, each making the long journey back to the sea for food repeatedly while the other waits patiently for their return. Going both above and below the water, Jacquet brings forth images never before seen, examining this animal with such rich and loving detail the director’s admiration for these birds and their endeavor is viscerally palpable.

There are images and scenes here I will never forget. From a cracked egg almost instantaneously freezing to a deathly close, to the sight of the penguins en masse huddled together to survive the greatest snowstorm ever witnessed by human eyes, to the males teetering around like weeble-wobbles as to keep the precious egg precariously balanced upon their talons and underneath their thick blanket of feathers, much of this is just so stunning I’m not sure what to say. What more, child and adult alike in the Seattle International Film Festival audience I saw this with spent the entire picture mouth agog, laughing and/or crying right along with the extraordinary evolutionary tale being told.

Still, it’s hard to get passed the fact “March of the Penguins” sometimes feels like nothing more than an exquisitely filmed episode of the PBS scientific series "“Nature.” Despite the harsh conditions the filmmakers subjected themselves to in order to get their story, out of over 120-hours of footage the 80-minute feature they’ve constructed is surprisingly glossy, refusing to talk about the external human forces (i.e. Global Warming) slowly eroding the penguin’s habitat and melting the polar ice caps. I also grew quickly tired of Morgan Freeman’s rather pedestrian (and slightly “After School Special” sounding) narration, so much of the dialogue handed him so overly cute and colloquial I’m pretty sure I gagged on my popcorn.

But when compared to the pure visual majesty of the Emperor Penguin and his tale, I must admit any complaints I could think to levy quickly become moot. “March of the Penguins” shows us a world only the minute few will ever get the opportunity to see; opening a door upon a creature man has yet to tame, slaughter or give reason to fear him. It is a beautiful, ethereally gorgeous adventure, one that takes the time to remind each and every one of us we are not alone on this planet owing it to the creatures of the Earth to look just as keenly to their continued survival every bit as tenderly we do our own.

Film Rating: êêê  (out of 4)