Review for 'March of the Penguins' ft. Documentary

Chosen film for the day (28 March 2019) is a 2005 French featured-length nature documentary film, ‘March of the Penguins’, also known as ‘La Marche de l'empereur’ in French language, directed and co-written by Luc Jacquet. 

March of the Penguins (2005)

Documentaries, known to be no staging on filmed events, non-fiction which depicted as real events though it can be partially inaccurate, due to the techniques used and the interpretation of both the productions and the audience. Documentary films can be recognized depending on the shaped events, the techniques selected to use, and the camera works for the film. According to Nichols, there are 6 modes of representation that can be looked onto documentaries, including poetic, expository, observational, interactive, reflexive and performative documentaries. The film ‘March of the Penguins’ is an expository documentary, providing various information about the emperor penguins using visuals and unseen information using voiceover or narrative which is known as the ‘Voice-of-God’.

            Featuring the emperor penguins, ‘March of the Penguins’ recorded them leaving their comfortable ocean home, marking the start of their journey on the extremely cold ice in the end of winter. Using their instincts as their guide, they came over to a destination where they would pair off into couples and mate – their traditional breeding ground. Once the female laid their eggs, it is a task for their partner to protect their only child for surviving as they need to set off for a journey across the ice-field to seas that filled with fishes. The male emperors are always left cradling the eggs holding their precious little ones inside, not only to guard, but also to hatch them. The hatching process should take about two months, the chicks emerged into the world that they probably could not survive for long as the food reserved is very limited. The babies’ survival is counting on the fate of their mothers’ return. Once the females return, the families reunite, and the babies are fed with food. The males are to search for seas and food, starving as they have not eaten took care of their only child. After the ice started to melt as the weather got warmer, the journey would repeat multiple times, until the chicks are ready to dive into the water of the Antarctic.

As an expository documentary, the film informs about the journey of the penguins leaving their home, the process of them finding their partners and having a family of their own, and the cooperation of the way the parents raising the child sacrificing themselves to starve only to feed them, using combinations of imagery in different camera work and the narrative of the narrator, clearly showing and explaining the specific scenes.

            As a typical nature and animal documentary, the film uses ways of camera work, known as the mise-en-shot such as wide shots, extreme wide shots, medium shots, and close-up shots. Firstly, the extreme wide shots are to emphasize the journey of the road and the surroundings around the penguins. Next, to show the movements or the habitats of the animal, wide shots, which can be known as full or long shots as well are used. For instance, wide shot is used when the penguins were sliding on top of the icy surface instead of walking on it. Medium and close-up shots are to emphasize the feelings or the emotions behind the movements or actions of the penguins. As an example, medium shots are used to show the penguins when they were finding each other as their partner. Other than that, close-up shots are used on the expressions of the penguins when some of the eggs were broken, enhancing the feelings of sympathy on the audience.

            To conclude, as a featured-length documentary film, it was pretty informative not only looking at the visuals and imageries the productions had gave, but also the hard work put on the voiceover by the narrator, who was noticeably used different tones to express different emotions in some specific scenes. It was pleasant to watch as it shows the nature itself. However, the colours and the environments gave chills as it looked completely cold inside the film. Overall, it was an amazing nature documentary.