Penguins make a big splash

This is the film which surprised everyone by making loads of money in America after being taken up, for some obscure reason connected to the benefits of family life, by the religious Right. It describes the long march of the Emperor penguins from the sea to their breeding grounds in freezing Antarctica.

A portentously moralising commentary, delivered by Morgan Freeman, calls it "one of the most beautiful love stories on earth". And French biologist turned documentary director Luc Jacquet has certainly produced a beautiful film of thousands of penguins trailing in a huge queue towards the breeding grounds, or clustering together in a vast circle to avoid the worst of the icy sub-zero winds. But there is a bit too much whitewashing of the nastier side of nature to make the description fit convincingly.

The facts we are given, illustrated by some brilliantly intrepid photography from Laurent Chalet and Jerome Maison, are pretty amazing. After males and females pair off in monogamous couples, the females remain long enough to lay a single egg before, exhausted by weeks without food, they begin the return journey to the sea, while the males are left behind to hatch the eggs, cradled on top of their feet.

Then the mothers return with food. If they are late, giant petrels or starvation get the hatched chicks. Meanwhile, the males depart, never to see either the females or the chicks again. This happens each year, so the love story lasts but 12 months before it is repeated with different partners.

All this is strikingly portrayed but the banal voiceover and undistinguished, slurpy music do not help, and we don't see much of the many inevitable deaths. There's not enough, either, about the effects of climate change which, because of the shrinkage of sea ice, mean the penguins don't have to walk so far but have even less food to eat.

March Of The Penguins
Cert: U