Winged Migration

I had been hearing a lot of good stuff about this documentary, Winged Migration, and having an evening free, I decided to catch an early showing of it and treat myself to a little dinner.

Catching an early showing turned out to be a little more challenging than I expected, since it was only playing at one theater in Manhattan - The Paris Theater at 58th Street and 5th Avenue - and the early showing was at 5:40.  I actually managed to make it with a few moments to spare.

The documentary itself lives up to its hype, if only because of the amazing shots the filmmakers managed to get of the birds that were their subjects.  Talk about humbing, watching these magnificent creatures struggle through their twice-yearly migrations in such amazing close-ups.  It really took my breath away at points, which is a really cool thing to have happen to you.

Several things struck me most, though:  When the birds would do some of the stuff that was, for them, natural behavior, the audience often laughed, and I found myself getting angry at them because I was beginning to get the impression that the weren't laughing with the birds, so much as at the birds.  I started to resent the filmmakers for (rather successfully, I'll grant) manipulating the audience's feelings, instead of allowing us to form our own opinions.  Scenes of birds being shot out of the air while they were in flight caused ripples of anger to pass through the crowd.  I was amazed.  And, of course, these hunting scenes, it was pointed out to us, were filmed in North America, where [it was never explicitly stated, but this was the sense you got] all the gun crazy Americans are - 'cuz we all know that no one hunts birds in Europe.  It just kinda peeved me, I guess.  Ultimately, though, that didn't diminsh the technical achievement of the film, capturing, as it did, some amazing film records of these creatures in transit.

But me being me, the movie wouldn't be complete without some sort of weird side note, so here it is:  In watching the birds, particularly the sea birds, as they managed to negotiate the wind currents so that they seemed to just be holding their position, or in watching them as they'd glide in for a landing somewhere, I was struck by how their body position was so similar to the body position I remember adopting in the dreams of my youth when I was trying to surf the air currents in my dreams.  Watching sea gulls seeming to hang in mid-air caused a shocking deja vu sensation.

Talk about taking your breath away.