Flick Pick

In case the stunning French documentary Winged Migration somehow flew right by you during its long and fruitful run at the Mayan, you can still catch it on the giant IMAX screen at United Artists' Colorado Center, I-25 and Colorado Boulevard. Shooting over three years on all seven continents, director...

By Bill Gallo

October 9, 2003

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In case the stunning French documentary Winged Migration somehow flew right by you during its long and fruitful run at the Mayan, you can still catch it on the giant IMAX screen at United Artists' Colorado Center, I-25 and Colorado Boulevard. Shooting over three years on all seven continents, director Jacques Perrin used camera-equipped ultralight aircraft and, sometimes, cinematographers in hot-air balloons, to go aloft with dozens of species of birds as they made their brave ways north and south in glorious profusion, held in thrall to their instinct for survival. The narration is blessedly minimal, the birds are absolutely beautiful (watch an African parrot use its beak to slip from a cage), the camera work startlingly inventive. After 97 minutes, the views of beating wings and sunlit clouds can seem a bit repetitious, but don't let a peep of that slip out to the ornithologists in the crowd. In the main, you'll be uplifted, too. Back in 1996, Perrin gave us an intimate bug's-eye view of life in his doc Microcosmos, but with Winged, he outdoes himself. As a reviewer for the New Yorker magazine aptly put it, his work here is simply "without precedent in the history of film." Winged Migration screens at 1:10, 4 and 7:05 p.m. daily. For more information, call 1-800-FANDANGO.

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