The March of the Penguins

At my brother's urging, I took the kids to see "March of the Penguins", the acclaimed documentary about emperor penguins in the Antarctic.

We loved it. The penguins are fascinating, funny, adorable (in the newly hatched and "toddler" stages, anyway), and, if you allow for some anthropomorphizing, even courageous, noble, and awe-inspiring.

It's a wonderful story of life and death, the beauty and complexity of nature, and the glory of God's created world -- even in a place so relentlessly harsh that it's hard to imagine it exists on this planet.

Today, through a tangled web of links (randomly starting with this blog from the Pro-Life blogroll in the sidebar, then to this blog via the "headlines" links on the first one, and finally here) I discovered that the film has been hailed as pro-life.

From the article linked above on World Net Daily by Jill Stanek:

Almost every scene and narrative verified the beauty of life and the rightness of protecting it.

From the NYT article as reproduced here::

"March of the Penguins," the conservative film critic and radio host Michael Medved said in an interview, is "the motion picture this summer that most passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing."

Well, I'm not so sure about the monogamy part, since the penguins pick a new mate every year, but the rest of it? Yes, I guess you could say those things are all true.

But no matter what you think of the implied cultural messages, don't miss the movie. It's a wonder.

And the biggest wonder of all: That the cinematographers managed to shoot this incredible film while surviving the 70 below temps, howling winds, and blinding snow.

They are even more amazing than the penguins.