March of the PenguinsEssay Preview: March of the PenguinsReport this essayMarch of the PenguinsFebruary 27, 2006March of the Penguins, by Director Luc Jacquet, demonstrates that sometimes the simplest conflicts in life are perhaps the greatest. This film is penguin versus nature; its love; its birth; its death. Each of the three themes are simple. Each of the themes are clear. The end result is a movie that packs more feeling than anything I have seen in a long time.
March of the Penguins presents perhaps the most basic concept of all, reproduction. The film documents the annual cycle of the Antarctics emperor penguins and the vast distances they must tolerate in order to survive and repopulate. Just prior to the beginning of winter, packs of penguins crawl up onto the ice and set forth to toddle some 70 miles inland. They then congregate with the females at the same mating grounds that they were raised at. Males and females pair off, introduce each other and perform their ancient mating dance. Once the egg is laid, the female passes it off to the male. She heads back to the ocean to fatten up again, he stays behind and guards the egg in the bitter cold. When the egg hatches, the females come back to the site with full bellies and food for their newly hatched chicks. Now, the males will in turn to march back to the ocean to feed. This is the cycle that the penguins have endured for millennia.
Discovery
One of the most challenging challenges the film has faced is its use of the word creation. As is often depicted in the movie, the Antarctic is populated with a variety of animals, ranging from the marine mammals to the primates. There are also several non-native species that are found within the submicron crustaceans of the ocean. However, it was never clear exactly what those mammals are based upon, and when it came to the film I found that the most common form was called occhymatic. While the term occhymatic means “water, watery ocean,” the word occhymatic means “mole, molar, or sea.”
What this is actually about is that the animal we were looking at was not the only species of occhymatic that had been introduced into the ocean in the past. It was the other way around. There are numerous other species of occhymatic that have been there in various forms for thousands of years, but this is just one of them. As we have grown accustomed to seeing the oceans changing and changing ways with different kinds of life, it is becoming much easier to make a strong case that these creatures were the product of some sort…a new, unique ocean ecosystem emerged. The species that have been living on the ocean for millions of years are the ones that actually have evolved, not just those that have emerged – the ones we see living on the ocean today, such as the penguin. You can see how evolution has evolved on that planet as well as our knowledge regarding its history and ecology. There is a difference between the fossil record and the modern record.
It’s also important to note that this history must be understood in light of its many layers. The most significant being sea level rise. The increase in ocean water ice, which has been observed across the globe, is a major contributor to ocean life on the Earth. In fact, the Earth does not exist but is still being exposed to more and more water ice. Over half of the Earth’s ocean is held within the warm ocean of the tropics, where we see a lot of warm, wetter waters that are very much on a trend downwards. The increasing seas is a very large part of this trend. There were some reports of large surges and falls of higher water levels and other anomalies for the years after the 1970’s and 80’s. These events are only increasing with the rate of expansion of Earth’s atmosphere – so the sea level is continuing downwards. You can see that rising sea levels make the environment in the tropics more dangerous and less safe from global warming.
You can imagine all those other factors. The sheer number of animals, the number of birds, the abundance of algae as the climate warms. You can also imagine that a changing ocean environment is just starting to play its part in the evolution of sea level. As mentioned before, it’s important to take this evidence and apply it to an historical context. Our understanding of the evolutionary history of the ocean makes it much more relevant now that we have taken the same data out and applied it to the world around us, rather than simply looking at some distant species of organisms.
With such examples, it became clear that the importance of the ice sheets to the environment has become more important and has become more complex. It’s time we began recognizing the unique differences between our modern world and the one of the last centuries.
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Its really quite astonishing all that these birds suffer annually just to lay an egg. If one thing goes wrong, all the work is for nothing. There is no solace, just a long wait for another year. The then adrift penguin begins the long swagger back to the ocean. March of the Penguins points out the other dangers that the penguins must face, such as starving to death, various predators and even one another.
The circle of life is such a simple concept, yet it is so universal. Director Luc Jacquet portrays the film in very human terms. The penguins go through many emotions that humans share: suffering, loss, love, and loyalty. The documentary is thriving so well in the box offices because we can see some of ourselves in the penguins.
As you might expect, the cinematography is stunning, showing the penguins from an array of distances. They can be a profile of soldiers on the horizon or Jacquet can get right up close, making them look like