WINGED MIGRATION
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This documentary follows many species of
birds as they go through their lives and especially
as they migrate. We see it almost literally "up
close and personal." Much of the film is jaw-
dropping and more than a little is genuinely funny.
Give this one a chance and almost certainly you WILL
like it. Rating: 8 (0 to 10), low +3 (-4 to +4)
I had a chance to see this film at the Toronto International Film Festival and I asked myself how good would a film about flying birds be. I passed it up and when it was too late heard other people really enjoyed it. Now I have seen it and I cannot imagine anyone seeing it and not being at the very least mildly positive. The value of some films is a matter of taste. Some films are just plain good and if someone doesn't like then it is his failing. WINGED MIGRATION is a film that I think should be enjoyed by nearly anyone who gives it a chance.
What are we talking about here? WINGED MIGRATION is a film showing birds migrating. It also show them courting, mating, taking care of their young, fighting, and doing just about anything birds do that does not leave a white residue. This is a documentary about birds performing the amazing feat of migrating. And it is hard to see this film and not be left in awe of this remarkable feat of flying thousands of miles. It is an amazing feat we see through the eye of a camera that flies in among the birds, closer than we could imagine. A goose flies with as much grace and power as any human shows in the Olympics. That it has the strength to fly like this for thousands of miles is quietly astounding. This film, which took four years to make, shows us what it is like to fly in with the birds.
This is a film of very few words. It tells us very little about the migration process and most of what it tells the viewer already knew. How many people do not know that birds fly the same route each year? But it is a film for the eye rather than the ear (though the musical score is appropriate and very pleasant). Most of the visuals seem to be the film just as it came from the camera. Each minute of film is chosen from over two hundred minutes shot. There is some digital work playing with images, but those scenes are obvious. When you see a bird flying over a land mass that is the shape of an entire continent, you know the picture has been digitally enhanced. But much of the film is showing the viewer birds that are inches from the camera and in a photographic feat that seems almost impossible. In fact, birds were raised from eggs to be unafraid of airplanes so that cameras could be placed in among the migratory birds.
The backgrounds are from all over the world from arctic to the tropics to the Antarctic. We see geese, eagles, parrots, penguins, grebes, and terns, to list just a few. Not all the birds shown in the film migrate. Some swim rather than migrate by wing, but the film is an appreciation of how birds migrate and inquiry as to not just why, but what is it like.
Director, co-writer, and narrator Jacques Perrin allows himself some editorializing. (Perrin was one of the producers of MICROCOSMOS.) We see close-ups of ducks shot in flight by hunters. (How do they do that without endangering the cameraman?) The ducks in an instant go from this graceful shape in air to pieces of feathered wreckage. We also see some pollution and how it harms the birds. There is not a lot of time spent on this, but it certainly is there.
This is not a Walt Disney "True Life" adventure. It is an impressive documentary took four years to make and now it has arrived it rivets and fascinates the viewer. A film like this raises the bar for upcoming documentary filmmakers. It will be a hard feat to match. I give WINGED MIGRATION an 8 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +3 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Sony Classics International maintains a very good web site for the film with information about the birds and their migration patterns and some impressive video of the birds in flight. It may be found at <http://www.sonyclassics.com/wingedmigration/home.html>.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Copyright 2003 Mark R. Leeper
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