Who knew that combining a sweet story about an adorable penguin and one about the atrocities of a political uprising in 1976 Argentina could have such charm? “The Penguin Lessons” does just that, thanks to the balancing act of director Peter Cattaneo — and the Magellanic penguins playing Juan Salvador (the bird is named after Jonathan Livingston Seagull).
After Cattaneo was given the script by one of the producers, he went back to its source material, a memoir of the same name by Tom Michell, which was a tale of the unexpected bond between man and penguin in the setting of a British private school in Buenos Aires. “I thought, ‘Wow, you would never come up with this out of thin air if you were told to come up with some ideas for movies,” Cattaneo tells Variety. “I was really intrigued by the tonal challenge of balancing the penguin story, the school story, the inner journey of Tom Michell within the context of the school and the wider political context of what’s going on in Argentina. It just felt like there’s a lot to get your teeth into.”
Set against the backdrop of Argentina’s political turmoil, it illuminates the brutal inhumanities carried out by the military dictatorship at the time. But getting the tonal balance just right of the poignant story of Tom’s experience with the penguin and respecting the historical context of the Argentinian coup was tricky — and it was the main focus of conversations throughout making the movie.
Jonathan Pryce and Steve Coogan in “The Penguin Lessons”
“The key was to find the right balance, showing the tragic impact of the regime on two of our supporting characters, whilst keeping the story of Tom’s redemption and awakening at the center of the narrative,” Cattaneo explains. “I was quite interested to make was a film where, perhaps, someone who would shy away from a film that felt very political would go and see the ‘The Penguin Lessons’ and they’d find out a little bit about what happened and then they’d be more interested to find out a little bit more.”
Political upheaval aside, so much of this film’s success is built around the performance of the penguin. And that was not easy. The first order of business was getting expert advice from the animal handlers well in advance, going through the script and asking what was possible and what was not. Cattaneo decided the best course of action was meeting — and hanging out with — the penguins just to observe them and see what they do naturally and “kind of reverse engineer that into the story.”
The penguin doesn’t speak (in a Disney animation way), but it certainly does listen, and that is captured with the film’s editing. “It kind of works both psychologically in the way that more and more characters relate to him. The penguin just listens, like very well-paid therapists often just listen.”
And, as such, it sort of reflects what the audience is thinking. “It’s a way in to empathize, even though the penguin’s doing nothing, you’ll think it’s thinking certain things,” Cattaneo says. “So we kept a very neutral and low expectation of what the penguin might do. And a lot of it is just reaction shots of it listening. But there were things which were in the script, which like going up and downstairs, which is incredibly charming. And they showed us a video of a penguin going up and downstairs. So we did use more. We had a hero penguin and its partner, Richard and Baba, and they did most of the key scenes.”
The Magellanic penguin, aka Juan Salvador, was played primarily by “life partners” Baba and Richard.
Just getting them to walk from A to B was a routine they figure out. Cattaneo thought they’d lay a trail of sardines or sprats or something. But because they were life partners, the couple would come together. “The handler would very gently take one to the other end of the classroom, and then he’d turn to the other penguin. The penguins would look at each other and slowly waddle over.” He adds with a laugh, “I mean, then often it would stop halfway and decide to poop or scratch.”
With penguins and all that cuteness at their disposal, there was tons of unused footage left on the editing room floor. Not that anyone would want to see it.
“Mostly the penguin pecking its feathers and cleaning itself,” Cattaneo reveals. “And quite a lot of pooping. And then one of the animal handlers, it was pretty much their sole job to have this blue roll and just follow around clearing it up.”
