March of the Penguins

March Of The Penguins

Essay Response:

Emperor penguins have a very unique mating ‘ritual’, which can show how far penguins will go for their children; this can be compared to the parents these days and how far they will go (even lose their life) because of the love they have for their child. Luc Jacquet’s (and other creators) main goals of March of the Penguins (made in 2005) are to make the viewers empathise and sympathise with the penguins as if they were human as well (this is called anthropomorphism), and the mating/birth cycle the mother and father penguins have to go through as a colony and as a family of new baby penguins. They use the SWAT codes to intrigue and amaze viewers of the spectacular scenery of Antarctica, lives of the penguins and what they go through. You may think penguins have it easy like you see in Happy Feet but in real life it is a much different story, after reading this you will understand what is meant by that. March of the Penguins tries to convince it’s viewers that penguins are very much like us by using anthropomorphism; for example, when you see a cockroach you think ‘eewww, that’s gross’ because you think its just a cockroach. This film tries to show that penguins aren’t just ‘penguins’.

March of the Penguins is a documentary created and produced by French filmmakers; Luc Jaquet, Michael Fessler, and Bonne Pioche. The documentary shows the yearly travels of adult emperor penguins in Antartica. They is many different versions of this documentary but the one that we have looked at is the American version which is narrated by Morgan Freeman, who is notorious for his calm and soothing voice which can make any movement meaningful; he can be compared to David Attenborough. Utilizing Morgan Freeman as the only human voice heard throughout the length of the film definitely gives it a much more higher impact to all ages. The writers and producers of this documentary have created to take you on an adventure on penguins mating rituals that are most unlike compared to any other on this planet.

Sympathy is when being feels sorrow and sadness for something or someone. It can be used to make viewers feel sad for the penguins in March of the Penguins. This can cause the viewers to connect with the creatures and personally feel a bond with them; this can cause a positive response to the documentary. An example of this is when they cameras show a close-up of the baby penguin egg that died; they then played slow, sad music throughout that scene. This made the viewers sympathise with the penguins because they can relate to this as a everyday problem throughout the world (not because of temperature only, e.g. Miscarriage).