March of the Penguins 2005

      At the end of each Antarctic summer, the emperor penguins of the South Pole journey to their traditional breeding grounds.  It is a fascinating mating ritual that is captured in this documentary by  filmmaker Luc Jacquet.  The journey across frozen tundra proves to be the simplest part of this event.  After the egg is hatched, the female must delicately transfer it to the male and make her way back to the distant sea.  She must nourish herself and bring back food to her newborn chick.  When she returns, the male will go to the sea to get food.

     Jacquet and his cinematographers Laurent Chalet and Jerome Maison, have done an impossible task in capturing the penguins in their own habitat.  The conditions that seem to be almost impossible to sustain life??  Also, how was this this team able to film it for viewers with all its splendor and bleakness??  Antarctica, is an icy white vastness at the end of the world and it seems very majestic in this documentary.  Emperors endure and survive under the worst possible conditions and they remain graceful figures.  It feels like being at the ballet watching a magical dance performed by these flightless birds.  They manage to look so dignified all the time while doing their amazing dance of trying to survive!!

     This film is an unforgettable nature documentary that includes stunning but also occasionally disturbing imagery of penguins walking, mating and also dying.  Some penguins unfortunately die along their journey.  Others freeze during the long winter as they huddle to protect pregnant females, the eggs and babies with still others killed by predators.  5* (Except for the peril, I really liked this movie)   

80 min, directed and written by Luc Jacquet, adapted by Michel Fessler and narrated by Jordan Roberts with Charles Berling, Romaine Bohringer, Jules Sitruk, Morgan Freeman, Amitabh Bachchan, Jose Coronado, Sky du Mont, Gotta Ekman, Fiorello and Sofie Grabol.

Note:  Imdb 7.5*out of 10* with 55,836 reviews, Common Sense Medai Cynthia Fuchs, 5*, age 6+, 5* educational value, 3* positive messages, 2* violence & scariness, Rotten Tomatoes 94% with 184 critics 81% with 99,893 user ratings, Roger Ebert 3 1/2*, reelviews.net 2 1/2* out of 4*, empireonline.com 3* out of 5*, Amazon 4.7* out of 5* with 1540 reviews.

Special Note:  By the time of the 2006 Academy Awards, this Best Documentary winner had grossed more than all 5 Best Picture nominees ($77 million vs. $75 million for Brokeback Mountain 2005).  The Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguins and the only one to breed during the winter in Antarctica.  Morgan Freeman almost passed on narrating this film?  He told his agent that he was tired of being typecast as a narrator and to stop sending him those offers.  He was persuaded to take a look at this film and he quickly changed his mind.

Trivia:  As the closing credits roll, footage is shown of the photographers dragging their equipment across the ice, setting up their cameras and shooting film as the penguins walk around them. The original French version features dialog for the penguins and a pop music soundtrack.