Avian cinema

Anna hates birds. Pigeons used to lurk outside her window in her previous apartment, and she hated them. Her little sister insisted on a cockateel as a pet when she was little. Anna hates Crispy (who, apparently, will live until he's 30, squawking joyously).
So it was really something that she agreed to go see March of the Penguins with me last night. Penguins are a little different from your avergae bird, which helps. Plus there's Morgan Freeman. And it got great reviews.

We went to see it, and I coincidentally had gotten Winged Migration through Netflix. So now I've seen the two bird documentaries of the year (or decade) within a space of 12 hours. Here's my review.

The penguins were amazing. The little suckers walk (and slide on their bellies) 70 miles to the sea and back during the winter to take turns raising their young in a sheltered inland nesting ground. they pick a partner for a year and take turns caring of a single egg. How do they care for the egg? They cradle the thing on their claws FOR MONTHS and hobble around on their heels the entire time. The egg-watcher doesn't eat for months at at ime, waiting for the significant other to bring home the regurgitated fish bacon. Mmmm. Meanwhile, the off-duty partner ends up making the huge treck at least 4 times, I think. Each time they straggle back, transfer the dependent, and send off the other partner for a few months of hunting grub.

I was struck by how hard we work to make birds seem human. Freeman's voice kept talking about goodbyes and reunions. And, yes, the birds must have felt some kind of emotional tug their little penguin brains. Arguably their sense of emotion is just as powerful as ours, springing as it all does from that primordial reptilian brain core, and not being clouded (in their case) with the rest of the baggage of consciousness.

But they're not human, and we're fooling ourselves to think their bizarre survival tactics generate a sense of lifelong pathos or hardy survivalism. When the nasty pelican swoops down and starts clumsily hunting the young chicks, the momma birds don't circle the flappy wagons, they just kind of stand around and watch the interloper laboriously hunt down and kill their young. Thousands of penguins go through an arduous dance every year just to find a safe place for the chicks to hatch (and it ain't that safe). Couldn't they have evolved towards Bermuda instead and worked on using those big claws for defense?

Winged Migration, on the other hand, has a completely different vibe. It's a potently European production. Sparsely narrated by Zorro, who says things like "zee birds can treck zee errth's mignitik fild as closely as a calmpus." The stars flap their way through verdant fields occupied by reverent peasants, past small, scenic euroburgs, and over castles that are clearly not part of a theme park.

I can see why Anna didn't want to watch Winged Migration. Instead of telling a story about one species's incredible adaptation, it's more of a "Look! Ees birds!" thing. And, as I mentioned, Anna hates birds, so she should be glad to have skipped this one. Nevertheless, the camera-work is just as amazing as everyone says. The shots of birds in flight are really amazing--it give s you a sense of how normal these creatures feel in the air, and how untrustworthy (but necessary) the earth is. All the messy, complicated stuff happens on the ground. Up above, you all you have to do is avoid slamming into your neighbor and you look great.

So go penguins if you want a heartwarming story about birds upholding traditional values in the complex two-job Antarctic economy. Go "zee birds" if you want Zorro, European scenery and some breath-taking scenes of flight.