"Even in this estimable group, "Winged Migration" ("Le Peuple Migrateur") manages to stand out as a truly special movie, as humbling as it is remarkable. This documentary on the flight patterns of a variety of birds was a recent Oscar nominee, losing out to Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine." For once, I wish there could have been a tie. Perrin brings us up-close to his cast of aviary stars, literally flying along with them on their migratory paths and studying their social fabric as they swoop, dip and dive. It's absolutely mesmerizing."

-- Sacramento Bee


"But facts are not the purpose of "Winged Migration." It wants to allow us to look, simply look, at birds--and that goal it achieves magnificently. There are sights here I will not easily forget. The film opens and closes with long aerial tracking shots showing birds in long-distance flight into the wind, and we realize how very hard it is to fly a thousand miles or more. We see birds stopping to eat (one slides a whole fish down its long neck). We see them feeding their young. We see them courting and mating, and going through chest-thumping rituals that are serious business, if you are a bird. We see cranes locking bills in what looks like play. We see birds trapped in industrial waste. And in a horrifying scene, a bird with a broken wing tries to escape on a sandy beach but cannot elude the crabs that catch it and pile onto the still-living body, all eager for a bite. In nature, as the film reminds us, life is all about getting enough to eat.

How in the world did they get this footage? Lisa Nesselson, Variety's correspondent in Paris, supplies helpful information. To begin with, 225 feet of film were exposed for every foot that got into the movie. And some of the birds were raised to be the stars of the film; they were exposed to the sounds of airplanes and movie cameras while still in the shell, and greeted upon their arrival in the world by crew members. (We remember from "Fly Away Home" that newborn birds assume that whomever they see upon emerging must be a parent.) Some footage was made with cameras in ultralight aircraft. Other shots were taken from hot air balloons. There are shots in which the birds seem to have been scripted--they move toward the camera as it pulls back. And some scenes, I'm afraid, were manufactured entirely in the editing room, as when we see snow birds growing alarmed, we hear an avalanche, and then cut to long shots of the avalanche and matching shots of the birds in flight. Somehow we know the camera was not in the path of the avalanche.

I am pleased, actually, that the film has such a tilt toward the visual and away from information. I wouldn't have wanted the narrator to drone away in my ear, reading me encyclopedia articles and making sentimental comments about the beauty of it all. Life is a hard business, and birds work full time at it. I was shocked by a sequence showing ducks in magnificent flight against the sky, and then dropping one by one as hunters kill them. The birds have flown exhaustingly for days to arrive at this end. It's not so much that I blame the hunters as that I wish the ducks could shoot back."

-- Roger Ebert


Visit the Official "Winged Migration" website.

From an online reviewer:

"Winged Migration is an astonishing achievement. With the help of 450 individuals, including 17 pilots and 14 cinematographers, directors Jacques Perrin, Michael Debats and Jacques Cluzaud, bring to life the migrating habits of a variety of birds throughout the world.

We learn of the red-crowned crane that flies 600 miles from the far east to the Siberian taiga, the sandhill crane that flies 2000 miles from the Central American Plains to the Arctic circle, and the bald eagle that flies 1800 miles from the American West to Alaska, just to name a few. But it is how we learn from these creatures that is pure cinematic symphony. The three directors took 4 years to film Winged Migration and used everything from gliders, planes, helicopters and balloons to get close enough to the flying birds that you would actually think you are one of them. The scene of the Canadian Geese migrating is photographed so magnificently through the Grand Canyon that we can see the reflection of the formation on the stilled morning waters without the simplest distraction of man.

Winged Migration is filled with such imagery. Not soon will I forget the greater sage grouse in Idaho where the birds have expanding chests and have tail-feathers that look as sharp as a porcupine's quills. Nor will I soon forget the scenes where millions of king penguins take over a coastal island or the countless birds diving into the water with such rapid fire like a multiple torpedo hit.

What is really amazing however, is how the filmmakers were able to show the birds in such a format as to give them personalities. We see the arrogance of the Canadian Goose, the fighting nature of the red breasted goose, the relentless tenacity of the captured Amazon parrot and the grieving king penguins after one of their young are eaten."