Antarctica is a beautiful, brutal place that’s home to species most uniquely adapted to its frigid climate. Even as I type it’s late winter there, the days getting a little bit longer, the sun rising just a little higher over the horizon each day. And right now there is a big group of penguins nurturing new born chicks – for they are chicks as the penguin is, genuinely, a bird – against the harsh climate.
This beautifully filmed piece tells of the Emperor penguin’s constant clock, one that drives them from their home in the sea unerringly across nearly 100 miles to their traditional breeding ground, a place where the ice is thicker and the wind isn’t quite so harsh during the storms of deep winter. The penguins hatched during filming by Laurent Chalet and Jérôme Maison for this French documentary (originally, La Marche de l’empereur) won’t themselves produce off-spring for another four years.
Pitched at kids with gorgeous cinematography and a lush sound track of naturalistic effects, this film is a diverting enough way to spend 90 or so minutes. Because of the concentration the film makers put on the harsh conditions there really isn’t much in the way of exposition about the penguins’ behavior; the narration for the U.S. version (read by Morgan Freeman) freely admits, for example, that we have no idea by what criteria the monogamous-for-a-breeding-season penguins pick a mate. It’s not often, though, that you get a chance to see such a rare environment on the big screen. Even with its shallow depth of knowledge, I found this film charming if a little monochromatic (by the end of the film I was wishing for some color, any color, besides white). Three popcorns out of five.
Visit the official site