Ray Pride

Penguins. Have I got your attention yet? Of course I have. If you don't like penguins, please go away. Now. (Even if you are going to laugh at them like a character in a comic strip, pointing and going "Ha-ha! Ha-ha!") In "The March of the Penguins," the American edition of Luc Jacquet's documentary, "The Emperor's March," we observe a punishing year of the ritual and romance of the mating cycle of Antarctica's statuesque Emperor penguins, with narration by Morgan Freeman. While the words written for Freeman to intone are sometimes banal, they're a vast improvement over the cutesy "dialogues" and score of the earlier version, which was closer to anthropo-porn portraying these magnificent, driven animals as agile dumb-asses. By keeping out of the frame and merely nudging a timeline-cum-narrative along, the filmmakers offer us a proof of a God, one with a sense of humor but without mockery. The glorious absurd beauty of these creatures stands on its own, without being co-opted for, say, a fierily twee Michel Gondry video for Björk. Merely to sit back and watch the seemingly ceaseless procession of these elegant jokers, one of the hardy survivors among the tens of thousands of creatures that have been made extinct in the last 150 years. This is documentary as sensation and yes, sentiment (earned), rather than information or education. 80m.

"The March of the Penguins" opens Friday at the Music Box.

(2005-07-05)

Also by Ray Pride

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Cold beer and Nazi subs
(2005-06-09)

Arrested development
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Skater Boys
(2005-05-31)

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