Winged Migration:Gone With the Wind

Joe Meche is a member of the board of directors of the North Cascades Audubon Society and has been the editor of the chapter newsletter for the past six years. Joe has photographed birds and landscapes for over thirty years and has watched birds for more than fifty years.

The Oscar-nominated documentary, “Winged Migration,” will challenge you to come up with the proper descriptive adjectives for this film. I was fully prepared to see this latest effort about one of nature’s most spectacular phenomena after reading numerous reviews and e-mail postings about this celebration of birds—specifically birds in migration.

I visited the Sony Movie Classics official Web site (http://www.sonyclassics.com/wingedmigration) and prepared even more for what I knew would just add to my own deep-seated appreciation of birds. The first thing I realized was that I hadn’t prepared enough for this fantastic film. After my second viewing—just two days later—I realized that I was viewing a classic. Before all is said and done, I plan to own a copy of “Winged Migration.”

This French documentary was over three years in the making, and director Jacques Perrin enlisted 15 accomplished cinematographers and more than 400 support personnel to create this incredible film. An array of techniques was used to capture the drama that has occurred worldwide for millennia with the changing seasons.

Birds were filmed in 40 countries on seven continents using ultra-light aircraft, helicopters, hot-air balloons and remote-controlled aircraft. You are, in essence, flying with the birds in many of the scenes. This film is visually stunning and the close-up views of birds in flight leave the viewer with a new perspective and appreciation of the physical effort of flying. Keep in mind that birds fly thousands of miles in migration, often taking several days at a time to reach their destinations.

While it would be virtually impossible to fully document the movement of the billions of birds that migrate worldwide every year, the director chose to focus on a selected few. The sequences literally span the globe to give the viewer an idea of the scale of bird populations around the world and the distances they travel every year. In many scenes, it is the sheer numbers of birds and the wild places they inhabit that are the most awe-inspiring.

Within approximately 90 minutes of running time, there is a gamut of light comedy and stark drama, along with stunning views of the natural world that few of us will ever experience. In this chronicle of survival and the instinctual urge to procreate, the implicit dangers are shown, along with a few heart-warming scenes of recently-hatched birds on the nesting grounds. In one of the more dramatic scenes, an injured tern is shown attempting to escape from a roving band of hermit crabs, only to succumb to the natural order of things. This scene has an eerie, almost science fiction-like feeling to it.

As expected, there were inconsistencies in the film that are left to the individual viewer to sort out and deal with as they see fit. The narration is lackluster; the captions are a bit dull and occasionally misleading; there is no order to the species that are profiled; and the music isn’t always on par with the impressive visuals. In the credits and in press releases, the producers acknowledge the fact that some of the birds were trained; i.e., they were imprinted and trained to follow the ultra-light aircraft (this technique is similar to that which was utilized in the 1996 movie, “Fly Away Home”).

In one scene, a hyacinth macaw is shown in a cage on a boat somewhere in the Amazon rainforest, along with other captive animals. The animals are more than likely headed to some black market thug who deals with exotic animals. To cut right to the chase, the macaw escapes and the audience applauds the effort. This was a case of the macaw getting away from the stereotypical bad guys. Even though the scene was obviously staged, the thrill of the escape was still there. Score one for our side!

Overall, and from the perspective of someone who has been attempting to photograph and videotape birds for a couple of decades, “Winged Migration” is nothing short of a masterpiece. The effort in the field alone is impressive and borders on incredible, but when you consider the amount of editing that was involved to come up with the finished product, you must certainly tip your hat to the entire crew.

In this day and age of movies with special effects, car chases and shootouts as the big sellers, it’s refreshing to find that a superbly crafted documentary about birds can still fill the theaters. Perhaps “Winged Migration” will go on to be a seminal film for many people who are only just beginning to think of birds and nature and of all the wonders that surround around us.

“Winged Migration” was shown at the Pickford Cinema in August. §

Look for “Winged Migrartion” in video stores soon.