Tuesday June 24, 2003 at 11:36 AM
Winged Migration
Appearing in The Environment
Last night I saw Winged Migration, a new film by Jacques Perrin. The 90 minute movie documents the annual migration of 14 different bird species and proves once and for all, that there is no shortage of unnaturally patient people willing to spend inordinate amounts of time sitting in blinds and flying around in ultralights. The quality and intimacy of the photography is simply unsurpassed.
The thing that held my attention however, was not the images of Canadian Geese making their way across 3000 miles of North America, rather it was the power of the story, the remarkable courage of the characters, and the unexpected turns in the plot. Unlike the sanitized nature films paraded across our television screens, Winged Migration showed the birds not only struggling to fulfill their arduous routines and rituals but to do so in the context of numerous obstacles, challenges, and threats — both man-made and natural.
Whether it was the violence of a hunter’s gun or the benevolence of an old woman offering food, the film managed to place the birds and their journey in a modern context that neither amplified nor minimized the lethal threat of oil spills and fishing nets as well as the subtle confusion attending roadways and damns.
I’ve never been one particularly inclined towards ornithology but Perrin may well have changed that.
