Werner Herzog's new documentary about Antarctica,
Encounters at the End of the World, is my favorite of his films yet.* Commissioned by the National Science Foundation, the film is Herzog's attempt to make a movie about Antarctica that isn't "just another penguin movie". On countless levels, he succeeds.
First and foremost, he succeeds by turning the spotlight not on the stunning and terrifying Antarctic landscape, but on the peculiar folk who choose to make that landscape their home. The real fascinators here are the bus drivers, greenhouse keepers, maintenance people, whose biographies could put many a Nobel laureate to shame. Herzog's editorializing ("her story goes on forever") adds a delightful touch to these remarkable narratives.
When Werner does get to the nature, it is tear-jerkingly beautiful, accompanied by swelling music that will give you the sensation of having your heart extracted with an ice cream scoop. That is, for the most part - in fact, some of the most intriguing footage is of the town and NSF research station McMurdo, which Herzog unflinchingly films in all of its ugliness. The prosaic and mundane have a place in Antarctica, too.**
In Herzog's Antarctica, penguins can be gay or deranged; diving scientists are rooftop rockstars; seals make noises like an army of robots; and humans are well advanced on the long path to extinction. Musing on what the future dominant beings on this planet will be like, Herzog remarks that they may wonder what human beings were even doing in Antarctica; for the moment, we should at least be glad that this human being went.
*I haven't seen them all - but I'm working on that.
**Until I saw this movie, I thought those neon CGI fish in "The Life Aquatic" were a joke.
