What’s up, I’m dos Santos, and this is Ulven Reviews: movies and series from all over the world and all eras. Today let’s talk about March of the Penguins (Original title: La marche de l’empereur), a French documentary released in 2005 and directed by Luc Jacquet.
It follows the arduous quest of the Emperor penguin to mate, reproduce and survive in the harsh environment of the Antarctic.
March of the Penguins is a beautiful documentary in many aspects. The first one that caught my attention was the visual. Even before the narration kicks in, there are many shots of the environment. They are very gorgeous.
The only problem is the score, which is very annoying. It resembles an 80s kids’ movie, I hate it. Regarding the score, it never gets better, it varies according to the mood of the scene but keeps the style I disliked.
The gorgeous and amazing cinematography is also consistent. It is perfect, not just for the beauty of it but also because it shows the harshness of the environment, the isolation of the penguins. There’s nowhere to go, there’s nowhere to get food.
It is tough to watch. This quest is told as a story in a much more compelling way than just nature and science point of view. It is a relatable way of telling it. I watched the version in English with the narration of Morgan Freeman, and his amazing skill as a narrator and familiar voice made everything even better for the relatability.
And for me (that really love and respect the animals), it was a very tough journey to watch. Everything is a struggle, and I suffered together, even knowing that happened more than 15 years ago
Everything that happens Morgan Freeman said to us: “Many will not survive it”. And it’s true and it’s very heartbreaking to see that. Of course, the documentary is showing a positive event, because it is the forming of a new life and a continuation of that species. However, it feels a little bittersweet because of the death and suffering that is involved.
All the details presented by the documentary were not new to me because I already watched many things about that topic before. But for those without previous knowledge, I think it’s very informative and a very interesting watch.
After watching it, the thing that went through my head the most was how climate change is affecting this process nowadays, how capitalism is a cancer to life on earth, and that led me to think about speciesism. But these three things are topics that I’ll have to touch on in another review, for now, let’s keep this on hold.
And, before finishing this review, since it’s part of the Oscars badge series… Did this movie deserve the Best Documentary Oscar? I really like it, but I have no idea because I never even heard of the other documentaries that were competing against it.
So, now finishing it. March of the penguins is beautiful and worth the watch. But it might be out of date because it’s from 15 years ago, and the high-class already fucked the world badly enough that these few years might be enough for the situation to be changed drastically. And I’ll give March of the Penguins 8 Moons!
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Thanks for watching see you in the next video.
Dos Ratos 