If the prospect of this lavish production about the tragi-comic penguin seems at first glance to be just another nature film, don’t be fooled by appearances. This tuxedoed bird is more than just another suit of clothes and Luc Jacquet’s gutsy expedition to the South Pole is more than just another camera shoot.
First, there is the temperature. The high is a balmy 45 dF below (41 dC below), according to narrator Morgan Freeman. But the winters cool down to about -80 dF (-60 dC) and stay that way for a couple of months. During this time the winds rise up to about 100 mph (160 kph) and there is no sun at all for about two months. John Huston may have had some difficult shoots in Mexico and Africa, but at least he had sun.
The crew is circumspect about their dedication and toughness in shooting “March.” There are reportedly about forty emperor penguin colonies worldwide (the very fact that people know there are forty penguin colonies worldwide is amazing---but that’s only the beginning.) Of the forty colonies, only four are studied by man. Of those four, only one is accessible without mounting an independent expedition. Although reading the words “independent expedition” might remind the film buff of Bogey and Kate in Africa, one look at the howling winds and perpetual darkness of the South Pole conveys that an independent expedition to those parts has more in common with a moon shot than a film shoot. Therefore, the one colony chosen was the one at the so-called Geological Headland Archipelago, also home to the cozy French scientific center at Dumont d’Urville. More familiarly termed “the end of the world as you know it.”
The penguins themselves tolerated the humans with the naive animal acceptance that most critters display toward humans until we kill the first one, at which point relations deteriorate. As Jacquet describes it, “the penguins have good and bad days when it comes to humans.” Although much of work is done with telephoto lenses, many of the shots put the viewer directly into the milieu of the colony. The fact that these shots are done when the penguins are nursing eggs and newborns is as amazing as it is necessary. After all, this is a film about the life-cycle of emperor penguins. This environment brings to mind modern expeditions to the Galapagos islands that are conducted with environmental concerns approaching cult religion. In isolated environments, virus’, spores and even film chemicals can have effects that are impossible to foresee. In a microspecies as isolated as the emperor penguins, the simple understanding of what may affect them is a lifetime study.The film itself is a documentary of the penguins mating and breeding cycle, which takes place entirely on the polar ice. Penguins live primarily in and around water, eating small fish and squid and living like other birds, more or less. But their mating and reproduction cycle is unlike any other bird, or any other mammal for that matter. It has more in common with the salmon, actually, and is an extremely fascinating side of this mysterious mix of fish and bird. Luc Jacquet uses the quizzical term “cursed” in referring to the penguins, cursed because although their life is the essence of freedom, they are forced to a near death march to mate and reproduce. The egg and the chick are sheltered by both the male and female from the howling 100 mph, -80 dF winds. One mistake and all is lost. An egg left on the ice for mere seconds by a clumsy hand-off freezes and cracks open before our eyes. The audience cries with the penguins. Our hearts break together. Very acute and powerful stuff.
You will have to watch the film to get the whole story, because words alone can not do it justice and it would be a mistake to try. But the fact that the males go about 125 days without food as part of their part of the reproductive process was news to me. Speaking strictly from my own experience, if human males had to go two days without food in order to have sex our condom industry would collapse tomorrow.
This film is a tremendous viewing experience. Owing a dedication to
The film goes on a limited release on Friday, June 24.
You can access media from "March of the Penguins" in our database .
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