Winged Migration

I'm a former birder, so I'm bound to love this film. But I think that there will be few people who won't thoroughly enjoy it. You'd think you'd be bored watching birds flying for 98 minutes with very little commentary to accompany them. You'll be surprised! These birds fly incredibly long distances twice a year in order to feed (e.g., the Arctic Tern flies pole to pole twice a year, that's 12,500 miles each way). It seems incredible to me that they'd store energy for half a year just so they can expend all of that to get somewhere and start over. Wouldn't it be easier just to hibernate for a few months?! Anyway, it doesn't matter why they do it, it's incredible to watch the process. The filmmakers spent 4 years making this film (so, yes, that is the WTC in the background as the birds fly past NYC) using ultralight aircraft and, apparently, some specially trained birds. Most of the film is from the viewpoint of a bird in the flock looking at the bird next to him. You can even hear the birds breathing and the feathers ruffling. Perhaps this feels so special because it seems as if you're flying with the birds, and who hasn't dreamed of being able to fly? I hope there's a meta-documentary on how they made this film because I think they should be given a medal just for developing a method of filming birds in flight that's so breathtaking.

original title: Le Peuple Migrateur
year: 2001
length: 98 min.
rating: 4.0
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0301727/combined