Winged Migration
dir. Perrin
Opens Fri June 27
Cinema 21
Following geese, cranes, swans, puffins, penguins, pelicans, and gulls, the makers of the insect documentary Microcosmos spent four years capturing impossible images of birds--via a bevy of methods and a gaggle of cinematographers--for Winged Migration, a documentary that is as much about the wonders of flight as the migration of birds.
A sparse voice-over and a few captions suggest the motivations and flight patterns of these creatures (the arctic tern's migration distance is a staggering 12,500 miles, for instance), but the drive of the story comes directly from the imagery. Never has flying been captured in such a breathtaking manner. The camera often takes the point of view of a bird inside a flock as it swoops through Monument Valley, passes snowy mountains en route from India to the Far East steppes, flies under bridges in Paris, and glides over sand dunes in Africa.
A few other animals make cameos, including horses, seals, monkeys, and fish (who are swallowed whole a couple of times), but the one creature whose presence is most felt here is man. A bird struggles to free itself from an oil slick; a group of geese encounter a decoy before being blasted from the sky by shotgunning hunters. Still, birds have enemies within their own kind--an idea that appears first in an early shot of a baby bird inadvertently dropping unhatched eggs out of its nest as it struggles to take its first steps.
The textual information is cursory (no one is going to be able to write a zoology paper out of this), but the images speak even louder than the film's often cloying, New Agey soundtrack. "For eighty million years, birds have ruled the skies, seas, and earth," reads the opening title card. For 85 minutes, they rule this film.
