March of the Penguins

March of the Penguins is not a new documentary subject. Producers have been filming penguins in Antartica for many years and many great documentaries have been produced. March of the Penguins is nothing new, but nonetheless is very well done. This story of the penguins and their struggles for food, braving weather and raising children is remarkable and also very enjoyable.

I think March of the Penguins is a brilliant film. It traces the seventy mile trek that a certain species of penguins make every year in order to mate, and the incredible determination and execution that it takes to bring a baby penguin into the world in the harshest climate on the planet. I found it incredibly educational and touching - I had no idea of the collaboration between male and female penguins in incubating an egg. It also raises so many questions - how do these penguins know to go just far enough where the ice is stable? How do they know when it's time? How do the baby penguins know to jump into the water without the supervision of the adults? How do they know how to transfer the eggs from the female to the male? Incredible, touching movie, and brilliantly narrated by Morgan Freeman.

This is truly a wonderful film. Perhaps the film can be criticized for being a bit too anthropomorphic; but even this characteristic only helps audiences to engage - and thus to more fully identify with these small and wonderful creatures. Unfortunately, there is now a disturbing 'political' trend, as reported in today's (September 13, 2005) New York Times. Both the film, and its diminutive heroes, are being heralded as a clear example of 'conservative' values. Conservative critics and commentators are seeing a variety of values and virtues in the film such as: 'the beauty of life and the rightness of protecting it'; 'a strong case for intelligent design'; 'most passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing' 'a winning argument for the theory that life is too complex to have arisen through random selection'; 'Some of the circumstances they (the penguins) experienced seemed to parallel those of Christians'. All of these values and virtues a... Read more

Interesting for adults and acceptable for the whole family. Well narrated and I know have a profound respect for these birds!!!

I had the good fortune of seeing this film (playing in select theaters across the country; opened this week in the DC area) at the AFI Silver theater in Silver Spring, MD (beautiful theater, will eventually write a review for it). Great for children and young-at-heart penguin enthusiasts alike, the story follows a tribe of the largest species of Penguin on earth: the 4-foot tall Emporer Penguin. Through starvation, ice storms and predatory risks, they clumsily march (and fall) 70 miles on the icy Antartic to their mating grounds with the sole purpose of finding a mate and creating life. Great for sensitive viewers (they use terms like disappear instead of saying the penguin died, which would probably make it a lot easier on the kids). However, the documentary was less about information (like statistics and habits); they took on a voyeuristic approach, viewing the penguins rather than going into too much detail (again, appropriate for children, but perhaps a little disappointing for... Read more