La marcia dei pinguini

I recently saw this film at the Waterfront Film Festival in Michigan and I can say it's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen.

Narrated by Morgan Freeman, it follows the annual journey that penguins and their mates endure to bring a newborn penguin into the world. This film has some of the most amazing footage I've ever see in a documentary ... including underwater footage beneath the ice of penguins feeding and being fed on. Footage so amazing that I heard one viewer saying how it must have been CGI as he left the venue.

If you have any interest in nature, penguins, or just want to see a touching story of the amazing journey that penguins make simply to perpetuate their breed, definitely check this film out in theatres. It's a masterpiece.

This is perhaps the most amazing animal documentary ever. The footage was gathered in what truly must be "the harshest place on earth". It is barren, cold beyond cold and then there is the endless night of winter. The underwater footage was my favorite, but every single frame is magnificent. I can't wait for the DVD, so I can see how the filmmakers did this.

The narration is less objective than it is romantic - making it less a true documentary than a story, but that is fine in this case, and Morgan Freeman does a great job. You really should make the effort to see this on the big screen - it is absolutely stunning!

Toss that anthropomorphic expectation and embrace your inner animal because documentarian Luc Jacquet has done the impossible: March of the Penguins respects, even adores, these indomitable cuties, not because, as Morgan Freeman says in his voice-over narration, they may be just like us, but rather because they are not like us. Although we may want to see ourselves in them, we end up seeing in this incomparably intimate journey through the entire breeding cycle in Antarctica is a unique organism totally devoted to the survival of its family, brooking no selfish activity and no vacation from the harsh climate and relentless demands of nature.

This film's strength is a lack of sentimentality that allows us to focus on the strategies of survival: Thousands of penguins closely huddle with their backs to the sometimes 100 mile an hour winds; fathers and mothers equally share responsibilities such as trudging 70 miles each way to store up food for the babies; fathers protect eggs while mothers make that journey; mates separate after the season from each other and their babies forever. Their lovemaking is dignified and the essence of minimalism. These are just a few of the rituals that characterize an evolutionary process guaranteeing the survival of the species.

Jacquet occasionally courts repetition, anathema to a hyperactive audience, but if the audience gives itself over to the rhythms of penguins breeding to live, it will not be bored. Winged Migration seems strangely detached by comparison, formations mostly seen from afar. Jacquet gets up close and personal (The parents exchanging an egg to be stored under their coats is memorable) to make the audience collaborator rather than voyeur. Lamentably, the director includes no scenes of raw predator activity, just a large scavenger scooping up a baby. A documentary should allow the audience of experiencing the good and the bad.

A few years ago I hid in a trench in New Zealand to see Penguins rise out of the sea at the same time each day marching by us to their camps. I was deeply moved by their dignity and calm, punctuated with a resolve to keep their rituals intact for millennia. That unflagging constancy is devoutly to be wished in humanity.

For once, the trailer hype may be accurate: "In the harshest place on earth, love finds a way." Love of species would be more accurate. No matter, you'll love the film.

Despite Luc Jaquet 's brilliant idea of making a documentary on the penguins, people should know that only LAURENT CHALET Director of Photography and assistant JEROME MAISON spent one year shooting the film completely alone and almost died there.

Luc Jaquet, quoted as the Director, was in fact never behind the camera.

Laurent CHALET shot almost 100% of the entire film while Luc Jaquet stayed in France, waiting one year for the return of CHALET and MAISON to start editing the footage that he discovered at the same time.

Laurent CHALET, is the real man behind the Penguins.

I was lucky enough to see this film at the Waterfront Film Festival in Saugatuck, Michigan. This was a wonderful documentary directed by Luc Jacquet which follows penguins traveling to their breeding ground in Antarctica.

Narrated by Morgan Freeman, it's beautiful and I loved the way it didn't just point a camera at penguins and say how they live, this one actually told a story. If it wasn't narrated, you would still be able to follow the basic idea of the film. The countless penguins travel a very long distance to breed. It's very interesting to watch these penguins, they go through so many ordeals just to have kids.

It's in the style of Winged Migration, the scenery is a character. If you get the chance to see this film I recommend it, it's wonderful to look at and it's impossible not to love the penguins.