Review of Winged Migration (2001) by Scott D — 19 Mar 2004

[u][i]Winged Migration[/i] (Jacques Perrin, 2003)[/u].

There's something very pleasing about the lack of pesky humans (and the lack of pesky CGI effects created by humans) in [b]Winged Migration[/b]. How nice to not have to worry about the petty concerns of boring old human characters, and how nice (for the director) to not have to worry about naggy, squabbling actors! How nice to simply take in the serene avian wonders and perfectly crisp images of [i]Winged Migration[/i]!

But I digress: Jacques Perrin's beautiful and bracing bird-oriented documentary follows more than 20 species as they fly across more than 40 countries (from the Arctic North to the Antarctic South, from North America to Europe to the sandy deserts of Africa) and over many bodies of water. The camera crews get miraculously close to the birds and capture impossibly beautiful images (through the use of modified glider-type vehicles), and the natural beauty of the movie is more amazing as anything created on the computer. As subtitles inform us of the names and stats of the species, the birds go about eating, swimming, gliding through the skies, and, sometimes, fighting, and they're revealed as often quirky bundles of personality. This makes the movie hugely entertaining in a swooning, Zen-like way, and it's sometimes even heartbreaking, as when one feathered friend gets trapped in a river of sludge in an industrial city. One quibble, though: Perrin's voice-over narration, full of generic birdie-praise, is a distraction, especially among soothing scenes of such natural, wordless wonder. [b]A-[/b].