March of the Penguins [Original Score]

The journey of this documentary from the country where it was made, France, to America is almost as circuitous as the one taken by its titular birds on their trip across Antartica. In France, various actors voiced the penguins, giving them anthropomorphic qualities; but this approach didn't test well in the U.S., and it was replaced with a voiceover from Morgan Freeman. In France, the soundtrack to La Marche de L'Empereur (the original title) was done by Émilie Simon and it's a wonder of quirky, poppy electronics--definitely not what you'd expect from an animal doc.

Simon's music was scratched for the U.S. version, which gets a rather more generic score by Alex Wurman. Typical of Wurman's low-key approach, the track "The Harshest Place on Earth" is anything but harsh. It's a lullaby predictably punctuated by piano and flute--the go-to instruments when Hollywood composers want to evoke feel-good uplift. There's a lot of drama in March of the Penguins, but little has made it onto this CD. --Elisabeth Vincentelli