Antarctica: the South Pole. Average temperature: - 40°C.
One creature survives on the pack ice:the emperor penguin.
Winter will last nine months...
Once, there was a garden.
A fertile, generous land where life was easy.
That was many moons ago before winter came along.
But, one day, a white mantle erased everything,
all the plants and creatures.
Those who could flee fled
but our ancestors decided to stay,
whatever the cost and defy the spreading chill.
Time has passed and the earth has changed a hundred times.
But still we stand here
Iike sentries.
This is our story.
THE EMPEROR'S JOURNEY
Where are the others?
How exciting to leave the sea!
Here we are, both feet on the snow,
in a setting too vast for us.
Are all of us here now?
One day passes, then another
and, on the third day...
The whole tribe is here.
Whether we be upright or crooked,
we all await the signal.
The signal comes at last.
With a third of the year gone,
when moon and sun meet at midday,
our tribe rise up, starts walking.
Our tribe has always been divided.
Between the sea that feeds us...
...and, far away,
beyond the vast plain,
beyond the ice-covered ocean,
an appointment...
An appointment with love.
Now on our feet,
we become nomads again
and we walk, one day, two days,
ten days, twenty days.
All those nights. All that cold.
This is our first journey,
the Journey of the Long Caravans.
The sky's paths shine above us.
The sun and the stars have drawn perpetual charts.
Beneath our feet,
the heart of the Earth hums its eternal magnetic melody.
Each year, route's guise alters.
The icebergs are like drifters
who lie down when winter strikes.
We have to make long detours
to pass these sleeping giants
but never, in our elders' memory,
has a single caravan got lost here.
Despite cold sweeping over plain,
despite eerily shaped mountains,
caravans from every direction
meet and gather, more or less on the same day,
at same time, in the same place.
As if by magic.
After ten days and thousands of steps,
then another ten days and as many steps...
...and one morning,
our tribe reaches its destination.
These gates of rock have seen us all hatch,
every last one of us,
since the dawn of time.
Here, on the Oamock,
we meet every year to give life.
There is no safer place than this.
Islands' granite walls protect us
and, beneath our feet,
the ice stays firm until summer.
No orderly marching now.
We each search the crowd for a soul mate.
The Oamock echoes to songs of love.
Here, we marry for the year,
with a single mate.
As every year,
just after we arrive, the hostilities begin.
There are fewer males.
For our favours, the females fight.
A couple forms and they step in.
For them,
a married male is a lost male.
So they dive in,
bullying and pushing each other.
As for us,
we wait for it all to blow over.
Those like us who have pair up now
seek intimacy in songs and mating displays.
Our mating dance will open the great winter ball.
Won't you open for me The door to your ice world
To your white desert
I just want to stare Out over these snowfield
Until we are one again
We belong to the frozen world
When the ice begins to thaw Becomes the sea
Oh, you'll see
How beautiful we can be
Oh, you'll see
How beautiful we can be
Everything is calm At the end of the planet
In our white desert
The sun kissed the ice
It glistens for me
And we are one again
We belong to the frozen world
When the ice begins to thaw Becomes the sea
Oh, you'll see
How beautiful we can be
We'll dance
through the longest of winters!
And, like dancers, for the next 9 months,
we shall separate and meet again.
If our dance is harmonious,
we shall live.
Woe betide those who can't keep up
or who wandered off,
those who are late or weak.
Lost in the desert,
far from Oamock and granite walls,
cut off from the group,
the lone penguin is condemned.
The left behind slowly fade away.
Here, whiteness reigns.
Anything that dies is erased.
Winter's first tears are falling.
They are still sweet
Iike our memories of the sea.
Silence!
Love has been expressed,
Iove has been made,
everyone around us falls silent.
A promise of life
nestles in warmth of our bellies.
One moon passes and we wait.
Then another moon, still we wait.
And, with the third moon,
the time comes at last.
As soon as life appears,
we have to cover it with feathers
and hide it.
Cold is on the prowl.
This tiny, beating heart
hidden inside the shell
is vulnerable in this vast, icy land.
Here more than anywhere,
it takes so much life to create life.
From now on,
each gesture has but a single goal:
keeping it alive!
I'm exhausted.
I must return to the sea
and eat to keep my body warm.
But, first of all,
I must entrust the egg to father.
The little life in the egg
cannot withstand the icy cold.
Some couples, like this one,
youngsters are too impulsive.
The chill snaps its jaws shut,
destroying the treasure of the hasty,
the clumsy and the unlucky.
For them, the dance is over.
The year is wasted.
Without a goal,
they'll wander back to the ocean.
We do our dance a hundred times
before passing egg to each other.
Over and over, repeat the litany
of our songs and charms.
Over and over, repeat the litany
of our songs and charms.
During our swaying dance,
we make the perfect gesture,
that tiny step...
That tiny step.
I'm going. I must walk to the sea.
I'll stay with our egg. I'll protect it.
My warmth will shield it until you return.
Return to the ocean and its feasts
and come back in time
to feed our new chick.
We'll wait for you.
So begins our second journey:
the Twilight Journey.
The dancers part for first time.
I'm starving.
Our food is on other side of desert
yet only here, on the solid ice of the Oamock,
can our chick enter the world.
We go to the sea while they stay here.
They will walk while we wait here.
Two months of hardship to defend life.
For a few days now,
the sky has been looking nasty.
From sunshine to the mountains,
our world changes.
We know winter is ready to strike.
We're like tightrope walkers,
balancing our eggs.
We huddle up together,
forming a single body that circles
Iike a whirlwind.
We shall resist.
We keep on walking through the same winter,
ironically on the very ocean
whose entrance we are seeking.
Here, beneath the ice,fish swim.
Here, on the ice,the blizzard rages.
And the starving walkers suffer.
The smell of water!
We can smell water!
The entrance isn't far!
We're here!
The ocean, at last.
The caress of water!
The light marks out the pathway to the depths.
There, beyond blue gate of deep,
our meal is waiting.
The wind occasionally brings snow
to quench our thirst.
We haven't eaten for three months.
We defy winter
and reach the very edge of life.
Some of us cross that invisible line
and fall asleep.
The whiteness covers their bodies
that vanish for good.
It's dark.
We are battered by the storms.
Cold intense to name rule of world.
We resist the mother of all blizzards,
welded together like the scales
of a turtle's shell.
Night's daughters are resplendent.
They trip from star to star,
dancing on the wind.
Take heart in your suffering
for the dance will go to sky's end
fetch the sun that has forgotten us
The water of the sea is so sweet!
We bask in the ocean
for as long as possible. But, across winter, on the Oamock,
Iife will soon be needing us.
In a snap of its jaws,
the monster takes two lives,
that of the trapped mother
and that of her chick
who will never be fed.
Terror still petrifies us.
Around us, night smells of frost.
The sounds of the ice are so unlike the sea's song.
It's time to go back,
time for our third journey,
the Journey of the Moon.
In the endless night,
we return to our icy land.
We bring food for our chicks.
There, on Oamock, they await us.
We must hurry.
And the ravenous night
Iingers on and on,
a night of one hundred days,
marked out by cold and storms.
However, this morning,something sparkles
in the air.
The light is returning.
Here is our victory over winter.
Life!
So small and so beautiful,
unreal in the cold that plagues us.
Our suffering has reached its peak.
Each coming day will make the sun stronger.
Each coming day
will free chicks from their shells.
Where are they?
But where are they?
How long have we been circling?
The first light has aroused winter,
unleashing its rage once more.
The cold is so harsh it manages to freeze the wind.
It squeezes us in its grip,
tighter and tighter,
tighter and tighter.
So we circle,
to spend the least time possible in the cold.
Heat lies at heart of this turtle.
Between our feet more and more chicks hatch.
Where are they?
On hatching, the chicks are hungry.
They need their mothers.They must eat!
In this cold,their energy fades so fast!
I'm on my last legs.
I haven't eaten in four months!
I'm an empty shell.
My remaining energy
barely enough to walk twenty days.
Twenty days:
eternity between us and the sea.
If its mother isn't back by night,
I must leave and abandon my chick.
Before giving up,
we have one last chance.
A hidden stock,
few crumbs from depths of my body,
after these months of starvation.
Here's a little food,a few hours of life.
I had kept this
for you,
knowing this moment would come.
Who will win? Life or winter?
For some,
it's already too late.
We walk while, within us,life cries out,
"Hurry! The chick has hatched,"
it needs you, it can't last long!
Hurry!
Pointless fear
and a lot of time lost for each of us.
We step up the rhythm.
wind now brings us familiar smells.
The rookery isn't far now. Faster!
The Oamock at last!
Whom will I find here?
Has my chick hatched? Is it still alive?
Where are you in this crowd?
Where are you both?
That voice! That song I hear!
And that chick calling! Is it mine?
Quick! Sing!
You've managed to survive!
You're back just in time.
You're still here...
And you whom I now discover,
my marvellous child of the winter,
my little chick.
Remember our mating dance and song?
Let's do them now
to celebrate your return.
I must take our chick now
and you must leave soon.
This moment is brief and precious.
With one step, we shall be parted.
With one step with a thousand winters between us.
Let's savour this moment.
Just a second more!
Listen to my voice, little one.
It will allow you
to recognize me one day.
I wish I could promise to return.
I must leave too now.
My strength is fading fast.
I shall embark upon our most dangerous journey
the Journey of the Hungry,
the ultimate journey
Ieave so many of us dead each year.
The new season has come at last!
Light intensifies over the Oamock.
Like the sun,
chicks become stronger every day.
But summer's a long way off.
now we can't let our chicks out.
They are so frail.
They need our warmth so much.
All around us,
the cold lies in wait.
Ten days pass, then another ten
and, one morning...
My first steps.
My first steps on my own.
It stings under my feet!
I'm cold. It's funny, it tickles!
This is my first journey.
The Journey of the Free Chick!
They don't go far.
he cold will soon bring them back to me.
But they have crossed the line.
They have turned a page.
We've never seen the snow
race like this before.
grown-up crowd together in concern.
They sense this wind is a bad sign.
The dying winter sends us
one of its last blizzards.
We find the cold weaker,
unlike our chicks.
They need to be strong.
This is part of the life discovery:
dread moment of their first storm.
Can't you hear my storm coming
Stones falling on to you
Can't you feel the earth shaking
Big dark clouds forming now
And I hope you're satisfied
To see the wind blow over me
Can't you hear my sky shouting
Close, chasing after you
Deep, dark fear building up
It's too strong for you
And I hope you're satisfied
To see the wind blow over me
Can't you hear my storm coming
Stones falling
Big dark clouds forming now
Can't you hear my storm coming
Stones falling
Big dark clouds forming now
Can't you hear my storm coming
Stones falling
Big dark clouds forming now
When the wind dies down,
mothers go looking for their young.
Lost, trembling chicks.
And a host of lives
carried off by the cold.
All those efforts shattered by a breath of air.
For some, it's unbearable.
They need a chick at any cost.
Life must go on grow on their feet.
So they commit
the most unthinkable act possible.
Mad with grief, they steal a chick.
That was close!
I thought they were to trample me.
You saved me!
I love nestling against you.
Happy birthday, tiny ones!
A month ago we were hatching.
Now look at us running around!
We can keep warm alone.
We're not babies now.
But sometimes we'd still like
to snuggle up beneath the duvet.
Some don't want to manage alone.
They linger in the pouches,
pretending to be cold,
but they're treated the same:
get up on the ice and start walking
The time has come
and we're independent now!
If we feel cold,there's the creche.
It's not bad. We huddle up for warmth
Iike our fathers when they make a turtle.
But it's hard sticking to one spot.
I have to leave you alone
but I'll be back soon.
I need to go fishing.
I have no food left for you.
Stay here.
Your father should be back soon.
You'll know his voice.
He'll know yours.
I don't want to be left on my own
Wait! I'm scared.
Look out!
The big wings are coming!
Get to the creche!
They're alone over there!
It's over for him.
He'll never see the sea.
Look! The fathers are back!
Is my father with them?
This is him, I know it is!
This is him, I know it is.
Grown-ups come and go.
They have two sides.
The white side is good:
it means full stomachs.
Black isn't as good:
it means empty stomachs.
We're different.
We're grey on both sides.
That means we're always hungry!
There are unexpected surprises.
After weeks
of feeding our chick separately
without ever meeting,
here we are,
reunited by the beauty of chance.
Our chick is strong.
Our chick is beautiful.
This is eve of our final journey,
Iet's promise to meet next season
to dance again and perhaps marry
for another winter.
Sun is shining all the time now.
Night no longer falls.
The ice groans under us.
It seems to want to leave. We must say goodbye.
The ocean calls me and will soon call you.
Here's to life, child of the winter
Here's to life!
This is end of our last journey,
the Journey of Separation,
that of our return to the sea.
We leave the Oamock for this year.
The time of the couples is over.
The dance has ended.
The dancers go their separate ways.
Back to the water for best months.
Three months of ocean,
three months of summer, swimming
and pleasure!
We've felt odd recently.
We don't even feel like eating!
Maybe we're growing up.
It's time to answer the call.
Since our parents came from the sea,
we in turn now walk to the ocean.
We leave Oamock to join our tribe
in the mildness of the deep.
Little ice walkers,
the time has come to change.
We are sons of the ocean
among the sons of the ocean.
And one distant day,
a third of the way through the year
when sun and moon meet in the sky,
we shall have
to hop out of sea and walk again.
Loyal to our forefathers' vow,
we shall return to dance for life in the harshest of winters
and so continue
the Emperor's Journey.
They spend four years in the sea.
Where? That's a mystery.
Then they return as adults
to the same spot, as if by magic...