La marche de l’empereur / March of the Penguins (2005) – 4/5

Breathtaking documentary on the ingenious breeding ways of penguins

I recently watched director Luc Jacquet’s newest movie about trees and thought it would also be time to see his Academy Award winning documentary centered on penguins. I found out that I knew nothing about these wonderful animals and their strenuous march. Those moments where they meet coincidentally and when they „kiss“ each other were simply perfect. And of course once gotten out of the eggs, the little penguins are just too cute. As great as those moments were, there are also a few sad ones such as the unsuccessful hatching from the unexperienced penguins. I watched the German dubbed version and thought the voice actors for father and mother penguin did an amazing job. Their voices were so soothing. Repeating each other also worked incredibly well and did not feel for the sake of it at all. I did not like the young penguin’s voice initially, but it grew on me a bit. I read that for the American version, Morgan Freeman did the narration. While he is usually a great narrator, I imagine it difficult to convey the same emotions as they were done here when we had different narrators for mother and father penguin, even if apparently there is also a German version with just one narrator. In terms of visual aspects, this documentary is a must-see. The camera angles and positions are mesmerizing and how close they get to the action is nothing short of spectacular. Just look at the scene in which the mothers go for a swim, how the camera is literally waiting for them down there in the icy water. Be in awe of the giant ice sheets and hypnotized by the chilly, almost dreamlike music. Maybe the one lengthy song towards the ending already not everybody will like, but it comes down to personal taste of course. My favorite number was the paradise-themed song we hear at the very beginning and seems like they realized how good it is and also included it at the closing credits. A haunting paradise it is down there.

It is just too awesome how the little penguins (and the big ones) slide forward on their bellies while making the most amazing noises. The noises of the grown-ups are not too shabby either, felt almost robot-like and I mean that in the best way possible. It is truly funny to see the penguins walk right behind one another as if they were standing in an almost never-ending queue and they are making funny moves with their heads all the time. When they finally reach the place they were born themselves, they are looking for a partner to father/mother their baby penguins in the future. As there are usually more female penguins than males (I wonder why though), there can be quite heavy physical arguments about who gets the male, but once they found each other they hold their beaks very close to one another and softly tough each other with their beaks as well to signalize they belong together for the coming months. Those who are alone have not succeeded though and they may not have the slightest chance of survival as the huge quantity of mating penguins creates warmth that keeps each other alive against these icy temperatures at the South Pole. One of the saddest scenes included the dark penguin shadow in the blood-red sky as he disappears for good behind the ice. But back to the more positive things again: At the beginning of June, the egg is laid and it needs to be covered immediately by the amazingly fluffy belly fur of the penguins as otherwise the beating heart inside cannot survive against the cold or the shell may break and make all the struggles for nothing. That is why many eggs with broken shells can be seen, given up by the parents who are on their way back to the sea. If they manage to keep the egg intact though, the father starts keeping it warm for two months while the mother is off to the sea collecting fish. It is truly smart how all the males keep rotating so that everybody gets to be inside the group at some point protected by the warmth from the penguins around him and won’t have to freeze. This display of social intelligence was maybe what stayed most in the mind for me from those relatively short 80 minutes.

Around minute 40 you can see a small beak looking out of the egg and the baby penguins begin to hatch in the presence of their fathers. Cuteness galore. The fathers regurgitate a white substance that the baby penguins eat right out of the males‘ throats or rather beaks. Of course the mothers are in danger too. If they get attacked and killed by leopard seals or orcas (the latter not being included in the film), the egg is lost as well without the father even knowing because nobody is gonna come and bring food for the small one. If the mother does not return fast enough to bring food, the father will have to give up the the young bird and go to the sea himself in order to stay alive. A lighter moment showed us two female birds jumping into the hole in the ice at the same time and it was too small for them both to enter at the very same time. In the family example depicted for this documentary, the mother arrives and sees the little penguin for the first time. The penguin family is reunited finally. So, lets summarize: The first march is towards the place where they were born and the mating takes place. This was basically a typical migration the way we see it up in the air at the sky, only that here it takes place across the ice. The second march is the mother going back to the sea getting fish for herself and the young one. And the third march is the mother returning to her penguin boyfriend and the egg he has been protecting for so long. That third march takes place during darkness, so it an amazing display of orientation. During that time, the father has not eaten for four months and lost half his weight. Once he is gone and the mother stays behind, the young bird is going to hatch eventually. Now it is all about surviving the cold for the little one. Still a long way to go until he will be big and strong enough to stay on his own. Those parents who lose their freshly-hatched penguins to the cold are often so devastated that they try to rob other penguin babies from their parents simply because they cannot cope with the loss they just went through. The noises they make in the state of mourning are pretty heartbreaking as well.

Once the cold disappears, things get slightly more comfortable for everybody. But there is another danger: skuas (big gulls) who try to catch some of the tiny penguins and eat them. The parents have to give everything to protect them. At the end, we see the young penguins, slightly grown up already leaving together, occasionally jumping on their bellies just like their parents did and keeping each other warm just like their fathers did before the hatching began. For the parents it is a constant back-and-forth as they can now leave their offspring alone and just go, get some food, return and head out again. So also the parents do not really see each other again because they are constantly off getting fish. However, there is a cute reunion moment on one occasion here, maybe the sweetest the film has to offer. I also really liked the shot when the young bird is down there right between the two parents. Obviously, it is amazingly cute to watch the young ones, how each and every single little fluffy gray penguin ball stumbles across the ice. However, even at that point it still takes quite some time until the young ones unite leave towards the sea. When they finally leave, they will probably never see their parents again and not much later their own endeavor of marching towards becoming parents is about to start. They stay in the water for approximately four years until they are physically capable of joining the eternal circle of procreation themselves. This film could also have been called „Dance of the Penguins“. This of course refers to the scene when the parents move the egg from one to the other. Unfortunately, the English title „March of the Penguins“ loses the emperor reference in terms of the human person that can be an emperor almost completely and well the German title is even worse when it comes to that although I admit that it is not easy to find a good translation there where nothing is lost. The French original title is the best pick.

„La marche de l’empereur“ is a wonderful wildlife documentary. I can’t recommend it enough. It also makes you wonder if penguins should be held in captivity. Unless you are the ultimate expert on penguins, you will learn so much about them. I’m happy I decided to give it a watch and it is almost impossible for me to say what I liked most about it. Maybe it was the multiple inclusions of the parents when they touch the other beak with their own almost as if they were kissing. These beaks were pointier than I remembered. I am glad this film won the Oscar. I think it is safe to say it is one of the best nature documentaries out there and totally defining when it comes to penguins. It is cute. It is beautiful. It is realistic if you look at how the seal and the skua succeed, well they have to eat too and maybe feed their young ones. The skua by the way looked much bigger when it was up there in the sky than when it landed. It is informative and the camera work is a triumph. You really do not want to miss out. Not just the penguin footage is wonderful, but even without all this, it would still be a stunning watch with all the eternal ice. I hope people stay away from trying to being climate change into all this. On a different note, I am a bit surprised now too that not really too many animal documentaries have it that they lent the voices directly to the creatures, even if two narrators is not an exception anymore, but they just did the same as one would do and did not stand for individual characters from the film. That is all then. Do I really need to say it again? I mean this film has a video game made about it. That says it all. You have to watch and if you do not want to pet a penguin when this is over, you’re doing it wrong!