First they flap northward in the spring to their Arctic nesting grounds--the geese, the pelicans, the storks, dozens of species. Then in the fall they wing back home to perhaps Africa or South America, prey to man's and nature's casual malevolence--the hunters, the oil slicks, the raptors--not to mention their own exhaustion.
That's all that happens in Winged Migration, the intellectually austere but technologically and aesthetically riveting documentary that has become a surprise art-house hit this spring. At the moment, it has a per-screen average just a bit south of such megamoronic offerings as The Matrix Reloaded and Bruce Almighty. And...