There is an old Japanese legend that says if a child folds 1,000 origami cranes, that child will be happy for life. This absorbing documentary, narrated by Joanne Woodward, opens with the brief story of one child who made it well in to the 900's with her crane origami before the effects of radiation from the Hiroshima bombing cut short her life. This prefaces the story of an extraordinary decade-long collaboration between two leading ornithologists: Vladimir Flint, a Russian, and George Archibald, an American. Political, cultural, and language barriers were set aside in the higher interests of an ecological cause-to save different species of rare cranes, whose strange, labyrinthine migration patterns recognized no country boundaries, and therefore put them _n jeopardy of extinction. The two scientists plan was bold: to transplant eggs from America to Russia, and vice versa, and then plant them in the nests of other crane species with less dangerous migratory patterns-in other words, an ingenious attempt to perpetrate a hoax on nature for the preservation of its own. This is the tale of how these men worked together to save the Siberian Crane and the Whooper Crane. In addition to the fascinating central story, viewers are given a rare glimpse of Russian village life, and some spectacularly beautiful and humorous footage of the lives of the main characters: the wondrous cranes. Highly recommended. (See THE APPRENTICESHIP OF MORDECAI RICHLER for availability.)
A Thousand Cranes
(1987) 60 m. $89.95. Brighton Video. Home video rights only. Vol. 4, Issue 7
A Thousand Cranes
Star Ratings
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