Review: ‘Encounters At The End Of The World’ LAFF 08

Werner Herzog’s documentaries are always a little offbeat, with his signature voice and pattern of questioning guiding the films to unexpected destinations. Who else would open a film funded by the National Science Foundation with the question that if ants can keep plant lice as slaves, why can’t a monkey tame and ride a goat off into the proverbial evolutionary sunset? Things don’t get a whole lot less weird as ‘Encounters At The End of the World’ goes on, but that’s definitely not a bad thing. Officially directing now on all seven continents, Herzog brings us to Antarctica this time and more specifically to the McMurdo research base and its occupants.

Likening McMurdo to “an ugly mining town”, Herzog immediately recoils from its personal charms on hand from the modern world (yoga studio?) and uses the base instead as a hub to connect to the various groups at work in the beauty and desolation of the antarctic. Be they animal researchers, ocean photographers, volcanologists; the picture becomes clear that most of those who make their home in the most isolated places on earth have at least a few stories to tell. Herzog gives fair time to all, mingling in their lives and work with his child-like sense of wonder and offbeat inquiries, which pay off more often than the audience might expect. A line of questions about homosexual trends in penguins is amusing (Herzog seems to take pride in upending the adoration of docs like March of the Penguins), but his followup on the presence of the possibility of “deranged” behavior in them is immediately rewarded, offering a segment on one little bird marching off to its death in the wrong direction, driven by some phantom force to head towards the unknown.

That drive is the heart of this documentary, which while full of mesmerizing footage of Antarctica’s ethereal beauty always ties back to the interior landscape of mankind’s restless spirit, a longtime Herzog theme. From the first explorers of the continent like Scott and Shakleton, to the brilliant minds who have found the rest of the world wanting (a linguist notes the irony of his presence on a continent without language), Herzog presents a last stand of sorts against the rush and perhaps impending demise of the modern world. Signs of that demise are here too, the effects of global warming and nature’s own tendency to destroy, ever present. ‘Encounters’ is more sincere than Herzog’s recent ‘Grizzly Man’, perhaps because rather than what is ultimately a case study of one severely damaged individual, it finds its center this time in many lives and many stories tied to one ideal, that of freedom and ultimately escape. Herzog presents it to us with humor and curiosity and the entire affair is stirring and gorgeous. It represents the thoughts of where our will to explore has taken us, and ultimately what we’ll leave behind.

[rating: 4.5/5]