‘Antarctica Calling’ Review: Luc Jacquet’s Latest Feels Like a Feature-Length Selfie, with the South Pole Over His Shoulder – Variety
Almost 20 years in the past, “March of the Penguins” crossed a frontier hardly any nonfiction movie ever does: not simply the Antarctic Circle, however the much more distant $100 million mark on the world field workplace. A bona fide world phenomenon, Luc Jacquet wondrous nature doc — and its lovely, relatable emperor penguin stars — received audiences from virtually each continent to show their consideration to the South Pole and the super-adorable, surprisingly relatable emperor penguins its director discovered there. (Even earlier than “Pleased Toes” and Werner Herzog’s “Encounters on the Finish of the World,” this was the beginning of penguin-mania on the motion pictures.)
The main target of “March” (and its 12-years-later sequel) was the 100-kilometer trek these outstanding black-and-white birds do between their mating grounds and the water. What plain pressure compels them to make that journey? In “Antarctica Calling,” it’s a distinct however no much less irresistible urge that fascinates Jacquet: particularly, the almost-magnetic pull that attracts the French filmmaker again to the South Pole repeatedly. He’s been coming since he was 23 years previous. Now in his mid-50s, Jacquet re-returns, and it’s the entire movie, not simply the penguins, that’s black and white — a hanging alternative that places virtually each high-contrast, high-definition body on par with a Sebastião Salgado {photograph}.
There’s only one downside. Assume again to “March of the Penguins.” What’s the number-one factor you keep in mind in regards to the film? It’s most likely not the visuals, however the mellifluous sound of Morgan Freeman’s narration. And one factor American audiences could not understand: In Jacquet’s authentic French-language model, it was the penguins who instructed their very own story. The movie was re-edited and dubbed in an effort to develop into the Oscar profitable marvel the world embraced.
Whereas unassailably attractive, the discursive and oddly self-indulgent lower of “Antarctica Calling” that premiered on the Locarno Movie Competition feels just like the “earlier than” model of a greater, extra audience-friendly film. However will Jacquet agree to change what appears like a feature-length selfie, wherein the director plonks himself in body for an awesome most of the pictures after which waxes poetic over the remaining photos. “All that continues to be is a wild peace that overwhelms me,” he opines. The place’s Herzog’s austere Teutonic philosophizing if you want it?
If Jacquet means his film to be about how he retains heading within the counterintuitive path — towards what Lovecraft known as “the Mountains of Insanity” — then it’s not a picture from “March” that springs to thoughts a lot as that indelible picture from “Encounters” of the renegade (and probably insane) penguin waddling away from the flock. Jacquet could possibly be that very same odd chook. However listening to him muse in regards to the supply of what attracts him to Antarctica isn’t almost as compelling as a extra typical voiceover might need been, the type the place our host tells us what he’s noticed and realized over a number of journeys.
This time round, Jacquet begins out in Patagonia, the place he movies the wildlife, whereas additionally permitting himself to be filmed, reaching out a compassionate hand to caress the blackened trunk of a tree badly injured by wildfires. Then comes a really lengthy ship journey. The best way editor Stéphane Mazalaigue assembles the footage, privileging summary and unconventional photos, it’s not at all times clear the place we’re. Proper across the half-hour mark, Jacquet reaches the Nice South. He shares his obsession with Magellan and so many different explorers who got here earlier than, incorporating pages from their journals. This movie is Jacquet’s journal, and although the photographs and musical rating are excellent — even when there’s not almost sufficient penguin footage to justify the worth of admission for many — the phrases underwhelm.
Nobody watches Jacques Cousteau motion pictures hoping to seek out the oceanographer questioning what he loves in regards to the deep. On this case, Jacquet’s drawn-out, quasi-analytical inquiry can’t assist however spark audiences (at the least those that’ve accompanied him earlier than) to ask why additionally they maintain coming again for extra.
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