journal features

movie review - Wings of Migration

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2003.09.10

This is a movie about migrating birds. It's a documentary, of sorts, though its focus is the imagery of the flying birds, the scenery through which they're flying, and a few simple themes (endurance, hardship, instinct).

It may not tell you much about the birds your looking at (many aren't even named, and quite a few are in it for maybe only 90 seconds or so), and there isn't a hell of a lot of variety to it (you see many clips of birds flying over high mountainous regions, diving off of cliffs, and flapping across oceans), but it's so visually appealing that I recommend it. But only on the large screen - I don't think this one would work on the small screen.

Recommended.

rand()m quote

Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

—John Gardner