Encounters At The End Of The World

The greatest thing about writing a review about a documentary? No plot synopsis. Encounters at the End of the World is the newest documentary from Werner Herzog. Simply put its about Antarctica. But nothing with Herzog is every simply put. Herzog journeys to the continent of ice inspired by underwater photography but it is not simply a documentary about sea creatures under the glacier. In fact the film touches on several researches going on there including volcanology, seal and penguin studies.

Herzog is not just interested in nature, he is interested in mankind as well. What drives man to do what he does. And Antarctica provides a unique possibility for finding some of those answers. What drives men and women from all walks of life to arguably the most inhospitable place on Earth? The film is filled with absolutely gorgeous photography of icy landscapes, exotic alien undersea life and enduring colonies of penguins and volcanoes and anything else you can imagine. By contrast there is the particularly jarring return regularly to McMurdo station a sprawling eye sore of industrial human presence in a virtually unspoiled landscape.

Inside the industrial nightmare are a menagerie of adventurers and scientists. Herzog takes time to put some of these men and women before his camera and to investigate what drove them to come to this land. They are ultimate dreamers. It is a sad realization that most of us will never go to places like Antarctica, many of us will never leave our home countries and some will never leave their home states. But here at the end of the world are people who escaped despotic oppression or threw off societal collars and came to live in a wonderland of fantasy.

Herzog is so good at contrasting man and nature and the drive of human beings. His film feels like a philosophic dissertation on man. To be sure it is scattered. It does not focus on one thing. It seems clear that you could make a documentary about almost any one of the many things going on at the strange southern continent. But the scattering gives both a broad view of the many marvels of an exotic land and feels fitting as one searches for the answer to a question that is by its nature perhaps unanswerable.

There is even a since of regret that such great natural places were not left untarnished. A short discourse on man's need to claim and conquer the final frontier brings on a melancholy to Herzog, emphasized by an interview with a glory seeker who wishes to hop on a pogo stick to the South Pole. It is enormously satisfying to watch a film whose concern is the human condition without the wider worries of our everyday world. There is little mention of global warming in this picture not because it isn't a serious threat but rather because the foregone conclusion of the film is that humans life will end in one way or another.

This film may well inspire some to throw off constraints of their lives and seek out Antarctica themselves. But even if it doesn't you should at least see it and for two hours explore a world you can't quite imagine and ask questions you can't easily answer. It is an experience you won't regret.