March of the Penguins
I swear, this is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen and I’m not one for documentaries. I am just in awe of these special creatures…It’s narrated perfectly by Morgan Freeman and the cinematography is so stark and beautiful, sometimes like a moving Ansel Adams photograph only, you know, with penguins. The male penguins travel so far and mate with such serene tender gentleness and there’s just this love and then there’s the egg that the female transfers to the male (she’s lost a significant portion of body weight laying this egg) and he takes care of the egg for four months delicately under a flap of his fur while the female penguin gets food. He even secretes this milky substance once the egg hatches. There are so many perils that both female, male, and young baby face in this austere environment-the seventy degree below zero climate, predators, starvation and there are inevitable deaths along the way in this journey every year. The sound a mother penguin makes when she finds her young dead after a storm in the first month or so is enough to absolutely break your heart. It’s a tragedy that rivals Shakespeare’s King Lear.
And if you think penguins are cute, you should see their young! SO CUTE!! With not too much time spent as a family, both adult penguins leave their young and their young explore the ocean on their own as a group, learning the harsh terms for survival like their parents did.
I swear, just looking at these creatures sort of made me want to be a penguin. But then I thought hmmm I can barely stand Chicago winters and I really don’t want to travel 70 miles every time I want food. I mean, I don’t even like fish. But one thing I will say after watching this documentary are that penguins are a creature to be admired for their hard work to survive and bring life into this world, for their dedication and endearing nature as they trek across the land and huddle in groups against the cold.
I keep thinking back to something one of my students asked me out of the blue last year. It was so strange and I don’t recall how it came up but she asked me why we care about and study animals. The answer had always seemed so obvious to me. But, when I thought to put it into words, I could only think of studying animals in relation to humans so: “We learn more about ourselves. We become better people. We may learn how to cure diseases, etc.” But now, what I think and what I didn’t say at the time is that animals are really separate from humans, especially some species. At the same time, we’d be at a loss without them. They are better than us in all of their moments of etxreme tragedy and tenderness. There is more I want to say but I cannot find the words at this point. I want to be a penguin.
(now playing: Vetiver)