Winged Migration [Blu-ray] [2003] [US Import] [2001]

The film begins along a minor waterway in Europe as a flock of geese begins its annual migration north to its summer breeding ground. It then cuts to other locales around the world as other species of large birds - usually cranes, swans, and storks, but also gannets, loons and others - begin their respective journeys. In all cases, the captioning identifies the species, their start points and destinations, and the miles between the two. Occasionally, Perrin makes the point more spectacularly by superimposing the flying flock on an image of the Earth taken from near-orbit. Voice overs are kept to a minimum.

Except for New York (with the WTC still standing), Paris, and a dismal industrial wasteland in eastern Europe, the flocks are shown flying through unpopulated landscapes both varied and magnificent: beaches, ice fields, Monument Valley, northern tundra, open oceans, snow-covered mountains, Asian farmlands, forest-enclosed lakes, deserts, and tropical rainforests. The sunset and weather (blizzards, fog, thunderstorms) provide dramatic backdrops. Then, at journey's end, the birds are shown in their summer habitats - usually steep, dramatic cliffs or rock-strewn shores with sea-ravaged margins.

But certainly the most eye-popping camera work is with the bird formations on the wing. The apparent vantage point of the lens is among the flock, with individual birds only an arm or hand-length away above, below, or to the side. I mean, you're RIGHT THERE! You'd think they'd have to be computer animated models. But a disclaimer at the film's beginning states that no special effects were used in the filming of the birds.

While Perrin emphasizes the round trip to, and the stay in, the breeding grounds, he doesn't gloss over the dangers. The viewer watches as individual birds fall victim to animal predators, human hunters and poachers, and industrial pollution. Some circumstances are heartrending, as when a disabled bird is surrounded and overcome by predatory crabs on an African beach.

Before concluding back at the same waterway and with the same flock of geese which began his documentary, the filmmaker makes a digression at first seemingly inconsistent with the title, i.e. with flightless Emperor penguins in the southern hemisphere. Of course, they use their wings to swim a couple hundred miles.

WINGED MIGRATION is a film to remind us that the real world can be just as spectacular and amazing as any one of the mega-budget, FX-laden, mindless thrillers dished out to the masses. It's wonderful.

Not all of them make it, and it shows how some journeys are cut short by predators, whether shot down, or eaten by a larger creature, or in the case of a tern with a broken wing, getting attacked and devoured by a hoard of crabs.
Some of these depictions are devised to tug on our heart strings, and might not be suitable for young children, like the unfortunate goose that gets stuck in urban sludge, and another bird whose nest is in the path of a threshing machine.
The filmmakers state that the tern and goose were rescued after the scenes was shot, and one assumes that the thresher was hopefully stopped in time.

The brilliantly colored parrots in the Amazon region, and the penguins in Antarctica are unforgettable. The greater sage grouse, with spiked tail in all his glory strutting his stuff in Idaho, and the Northern gannet diving into the Arctic sea, looking more like a missile than a bird are also images that stay in one's mind.
This film was directed by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud, with a crew of fifteen cinematographers, among them Thierry Machado, and it has a lovely peaceful score by Bruno Coulais. Both Machado and Coulais were part of the creative force behind the mesmerizing 1996 "Microcosmos".
The English version is narrated by Philippe Labro, won many awards and was nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar. Total running time is 98 minutes.

Yes some of the shots are manipulated, but that doesn't detract from the amazing visual feast. It's not overly sentimental, scenes such as the injured bird and the crabs, the goose hunters and penguins apparently standing by why their young are predated are shocking, but the beautiful scenes stick in the mind too. And so few people on shot is another plus - though the scene of the Bulgarian woman feeding returning cranes like old friends is a highlight.