WINGED MIGRATION GOES NOWHERE
            Movie Snob decided to become DVD Snob for a day when he rented the vastly overrated Winged Migration.  This is a monumental mess of a film.  Presumably, it’s about a boy who befriends an injured duck; the duck’s brave flight north; and the tearful reunion between the two upon the duck’s return.  So, what was the deal with the penguins?  They weren’t even on the duck’s route, unless he flew to the Arctic the long way, around the South Pole.  That was Movie Snob’s main gripe with this film – it’s all over the place, literally. Cranes in Africa, Puffins in South America, Geese in the US, kingfishers, pelicans, blackbirds, storks – What about the boy, for crying out loud?  I say, less extraneous bird footage – more shots of the boy.  Heck, the friggin’ “Clark’s Grebe” (whatever that is) had more screen time than duck/boy relationship.  That brings up another point – occasionally, an enigmatic graphic would appear, such as “The Clark’s Grebe flies 500 miles from Europe to Greenland.”  These were really distracting.  I would have preferred a graphic about the boy: “The boy is 12 years old.  He is afraid of the dark. He wrote a song about a horse.”  Stay on topic, that’s all I ask.

            Movie Snob once took a Continuing Education course in screenwriting, and he has a semester of conversational Portuguese, so he knows something about movie plot structure.  Where is the Inciting Incident?  Where is the 3^rd Act?  How does the protagonist change?  The duck flies North; six months later, he flies back South; at the end of the film, he flies back North.   Not much character development, here.  And there’s even less for the boy.  We see the boy at a pond watching the duck; six months later, we see the same boy, in the same clothes, at the same pond, watching the same duck.  And while Movie Snob applauds the director’s brave decision not to give the boy a speaking part, it further serves to muddle his role in the movie.

            But hey, maybe Movie Snob is being too harsh – after all, director Jacques Perrin gives himself an out by labeling his film a “documentary.”  Unfortunately, even if we take the director at his word, and treat this as a “documentary” (wink, wink), the film still fails to deliver.  Mr. Perrin (whose vapid narration sounds like he’s channeling fellow dead countryman, Jacques Cousteau) constantly rams home the point that birds must constantly migrate “to survive.”  Watching this picture, I was struck by one over-riding question: WHY?  Why do birds fly 2,000 miles, only to return to the same pond?  Wouldn’t it just be easier to stay put?  Wouldn’t they save themselves a lot of trouble?  Frankly, making the seasonal odyssey doesn’t seem to increase their “survival” odds any. Birds get shot, trapped, eaten, run over, coated in oil – all for the wonderful reward of freezing to death in the Arctic. Those that “survive” fly all the way back to the pond, which looks to have held up quite well in their absence. Basically, Winged Migration is a testament to the innate stupidity of the bird kingdom.  At one point, we see birds struggling to cross the Sahara.  We’re told they do this every year and many don’t survive the trip.  We’re asked to feel pity for these unfortunate animals.  Hmm, a thought occurs to me – why not GO AROUND the Sahara?!  Can’t the birds use their years of experience to pick the best route?  Are they totally incapable of deductive reasoning?  It’s a desert! 

            In the opening credits, Perrin informs us that “no special effects were used” to create the film.  Admittedly, some of the visuals are breathtaking.  Perrin used gliders to fly along with the birds, capturing them close up in flight.  There’s even a shot of a flock of seagulls (not the 80’s band) flying high above the earth. The view is from above the birds. Looking down, we can see the birds, the sky, the individual continents, and the curvature of the earth.  Then the shot quickly spirals down to land on the ground. Ah yes, I forgot that Jacques Perrin invented Outer Space Glider technology.  He often orbits the earth in his vacuum-sealed, atmosphere-proof glider, just filming whatever comes along, occasionally nose-diving to the ground from space.  For his next project, he’ll be filming Woodpeckers on Mars.

            Winged Migration needs a script, a bird with a measurable IQ, and a lie detector.  It was certainly a hard pill to swallow, always parroting the same survival message.  It left a bittern taste in my mouth, and I swiftly re-terned this turkey.  Don’t be gulled by the ads: this film is for the birds.